Richmond Progressive Alliance’s Lessons for Local Organizers
It doesn’t often make national headlines, but the city of Richmond, California, has been home to a successful progressive political reform project in recent years. Here are ten lessons for other municipal reformers from the Richmond Progressive Alliance.
Eduardo Martinez speaks during a press conference at a homeless encampment in Richmond, California, on September 15, 2022. (Jane Tyska / Digital First Media / East Bay Times via Getty Images)
On a Saturday evening last spring, Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) cochair Claudia Jimenez hosted a high-spirited rally and party with two hundred supporters of her reelection campaign for the Richmond City Council. Jimenez is a forty-six-year-old immigrant from Colombia, who worked as an architect and community organizer before seeking elected office four years ago in her diverse, blue-collar city of 114,000, which is 80 percent non-white.
On the seven-member council, which includes an RPA majority, she has immersed herself in municipal finance questions, public safety issues, and the long-standing challenge of making Chevron, the city’s largest employer, more responsive to community concerns about its environmental impact.
Along with Mayor Eduardo Martinez, a retired Richmond schoolteacher, Jimenez backed a 2024 ballot initiative — dubbed the “Make Polluters Pay Tax,” which pressured the giant oil refiner into making a financial settlement with the city, that will add $550 million to its treasury over the next decade.
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