i'm trying to peel back the layers on things i just don't see or hear written about as often. >> host: thank you for your time. i appreciate it. we are exceptionally excited to welcome steve here tonight. the second time you posted you. i think the last time it was a smaller state and you were in years ago. steve will talk about his book refinery town which is about richmond, california. and it's really exciting to see

good, well researched, deep dive into what works in organizing. one of the problems with our media landscape is i could probably go find mike 1700 pieces on whatever the president put out on twitter yesterday. but an actual helpful account of how to organize communities, grassroots, anticorporate power, that is asking too much. and i know the richmond california story is an important story and has been told. i've seen a couple of articles about it. and again it is one of the real sort of stories we should be learning from especially in a town like baltimore that shares a lot with richmond in the deindustrialization, racism, poverty and really one of the most important things is the lack of luxury to kind of get hung up on not working together. like baltimore, richmond is

simply too small to have too many divisions and what is exciting about what i know about the story is they found a way to get over the divisions, worked together in alliance that was able to get stuff done including electing the only significant green party mayor in the united states so excited to talk tonight and excited to learn. please join me in welcoming steve. [applause] thank you very much for that great introduction. it's a privilege to be here tonight. i apologize for the formality of arrangements. our good friends at c-span book tv are here, so this is an opportunity for all of us to be on tv late night at some upcoming date yet to be determined if we make this event a lively one i gather when

people very soon get to come up and ask questions contribute to the discussion, it would be good if you came up where john was just now and that way the camera crew can capture what you have to say. i'm going to keep this real short because i think these kind of events are most productive if they are conducted as an exchange, as a discussion. and i know from the folks i've known for a long time in the room or just meant like dan schwartzman who ran for the city council this fall with the backing of the green party and democratic american socialist alternative there's a lot of people in the city who are tackling the problem of how progressives can get involved in electoral politics at the municipal level and run credible and eventually successful campaigns. it's great to see the old union

comrades, old and in the sensef longtime union comrades. but berry who i met years ago when he was a stalwart of the united electrical workers throughout the northeast, and my long-time fellow newspaper guild, god, coworker and friend donna cartwright who is the one person i know in the room has actually been to richmond california and is a visitor to the neighborhood whose daughter hasn't been there on days like this five years ago when degioia was having a very bad hair day and had a fire and explosion that sent 15,000 of our richmond neighbors scrambling for medical attention at every hospital emergency room and clinic in the area. is there anybody else that went to school in the area or work in the area, spent time in the great city of richmond or near

its? >> [inaudible] >> he went t >> you into berkeley. did you ever go to richmond? >> [inaudible] >> let's come back and talk about that. anybody else clacks >> [inaudible] >> okay, the county seat where we have a sheriff we need to replace at the moment. but we can talk later on about the challenges of the progressive movement gaining traction in one city and then coming up against the fact that in california property taxes are controlled at the county level, the county sheriff can be a friend of trump even while your own city police chief is on a sanctuary city program and when there is problems with the conduct of a wash this case

after case. one of our objectives in the richmond area at this point is to come up with credible candidates to challenge both who are as our tenets and the district attorney but i get ahead of myself. anybody else been a tourist in the area clicks okay well, i have only been a resident of richmond california for five years. prior to that, i spent three years as a boston-based national union representative for the communication workers guy did some freelance writing on the side about mainly labor issues, strikes, organizing, bargaining, union-based political action. when i moved to richmond five years ago after retiring from my full-time job with a communication workers, i was drawn to the richness of the city and its colorful history, its many current challenges and the inspiring emergence the last

ten or 15 years of one of the most successful city-based reform movements led by as john said a very unusual coalition of green party is, socialists from two or three different groups, independent dissident black and latino democrats and independent voters. we have a lot of fragmentation on the left and people overcame some of those political differences and decided to rebrand and run candidates for not just run candidates for city council and mayor bud to build a membership organization that now has 300 to 350 members in the city of 110,000. the membership-based group also has labor and community organization affiliates and organizes around a wide range of workers rights and community and

environmental issues year-round. so it's a kind of hybrid organization and de facto political party when people start running for the city council and thcouncil and the md richmond as progressives under the alliance inter in 2004 they were pretty new to the local politics. they had to learn from scratch how to set up phone banks and how to canvas and how to build a database of identified progressive voters, how to raise money and allow the campaign-finance and paperwork. but over time, they got good enough and bolts of the politics and since 2004, the progressives in richmond have won ten out of 16 city council races. in the city i would say 80% white that is largely poor and working class with a median income of in the community median family income is one of

the lowest in the area which a percentage of the families are living at oliving at or below ty defined poverty level. not university town, not berkeley, madison wisconsin, burlington vermont, not santa monica or any of the other places that in many parts of the country guy you know, we associate with past efforts by progressives by socialists and green to take over the city hall to try to turn the municipal government and the lyra tory for the progressive initiatives. we now have a progressive super majority five out of seven council members in richmond and as mentioned, between 2000 and 2006 and 2014, the green mayor mcglaughlidoug laughlin made rie largest city in the country and

i'm proud to report she is still a member of the city council and monday declared independent progressive candidacy for the lieutenant governor of vermont of california. we also have a fellow progressive on the city council running for the state assembly. so we have a strong base in one of the larger cities and into costa county, richmond progressives are trying to move up in politics. let me say very briefly a couple things about some of the elements of success. people got involved in the municipal politics in richmond not because they particularly wanted to. people have been involved in the campaign in 2000, the green campaign for governor of california. people have been involved in the peace movement and the environmental movement. most people were direct action nests. they didn't have much use for

the politics and as i mentioned, not much experience with it, practical experience, but people were confronted in the kind of problems that you face here in baltimore, the police department out of control that killed people and cost the city millions of dollars in civil rights damages that brutalized black and latino youth. the city ten to 12 years ago was faced with a corrupt and dysfunctional city hall administration nearly bankrupt at one point due to the incompetence of the series of not so professional city manager's. there were landlords running amok.

chevron previously under standard will dominate its richmond politics as part of a broader conservative coalition that included the chamber of commerce and manufacturers association and major developers and adversaries here in baltimore. the building trade union police and firefighter unions cause of people up against a few of tho those. they are deep-pocketed political forces richmond progressives had to start tackling ten or 12 years ago. in the last ten or 12 years the progressive representation on the city council has grown particularly during the eight years when the governor was our innovative mayor we have been able to raise the minimum wage without a veto.

we have been able to make chevron a little bit more its fair share of taxes. last fall they helped elect to more progressives and give the majority and richmond voters by the 2-1 margin made it one of the first in 38 years to adopt rent control. i know what to do this and other places an in the country, washington state, oregon, massachusetts. we can't adopt rent control. in california, and overly limited extent, municipalities can regulate and our ballot measure last year that was incredibly popular among thousands of black and latino low-income tenants rollback to the level of a year before for the rent increases to the

overall annual increase in the consumer price index and created a board of a. she came in and 2,000 votes ahead of an 85-year-old african-american council incumbent backed by chevron the last four decades the second

place environmentalist also a first-time candidate like melvin benefited from this huge upsurge of turnout around the rent control issue. the other seven candidates in the field, some of them nice people and some of them were neighbors of mine, democrats have none of them unlike our progressive candidates in richmond will take the pledge to refuse corporate donations. so we are providing the wind and richmond politics over the last decade this meant the candidates that run corporate free and together as a part of a ticket committed to the common progressive platform which would be then better able to hold them accountable when they get elected to the public office and everybody else's is in the usual

entrepreneurial hand out looking for corporate donations kind of campaigns, really more about personal career and ambitions into doing good things for the people to then become the mayor to run for the state legislature into them run for congress. so come and richmond we have the de facto political party or movement based party for eight years and they function very much like seattle. whatever resources they have as a full-time public official in the case of a mayor to mobilize constituencies. constituencies. of the laborthe labor, community organizations, environmental groups between the insiders and the outsiders. the other element i personally contributed a little bit at least in some long meetings and this started with the mayor in

2006 there'2006 is dozens of apd positions to all kinds of key city boards and commission meetings that had been cited as progressives over the last decade parks and recreation, more important ones like the planning commission, the housing commission by the civilian police oversight commission whose powers and richmond have been strengthened. i asked a labor activist and now appointed to the personnel board and get to hear members of the police or firefighters or the blue-collar workers represented by service employees in northern california so there's hundreds of people that only help out in election years as door knockers and contributors and sign

holders and campaign volunteers, there's people year-round support professionals with staffing and expertise as a plaintiff city officials to move in a better direction when you have that kind of activist in the best sense of the word the city government so it's not just relying on two people were one person it on our behalf of a whole layer of folks involved in trainintrying to help to transfe city government. of th the lessons of the experiment are that you can't do as much as you want to do in one city. he tried to do more networking in the wake of the bernie campaign with other like-minded campaign inspired local

progressive groupings in the area. the strong groups in berkeley and one emerging people trying one way or another to have this kind of model to their own. it was the network of progressive groups around the country he also had discussions with the working families party and the people's action there's

a bunch of networks out there trying to support people. i'i am ready to run, what do i o next. so there is an enormous number of people thinking seriously about the politics trying to contest the state and county. some of the differences in some of your own ideas about how to

move ahead. thank you very much for coming and what's open up. [applause] [inaudible] as i understand it, one of the things that made it possible in the municipalities in california they have inspired and so you don't have to get into the question immediately at least.

[inaudible] >> that is correct in california they are officially nonpartisan in the sense that people are not listed on the ballot as democrats, republicans, peace and freedom party, alternative. but the process of building a progressive movement over the last ten or 12 years in the electoral arena has made them highly partisan as they've always been in this nonpartisanship is kind of a disguise. when you have candidates running with the benefit of hundreds of thousands of dollars by the renewable energy giant they are

the personification of the term corporate democrat. richmond is a city with 70% registered democrats probably only two or 300 at this point and then some independence and the conservative role is played by conservative democrats. on a number of issues. and the issue of who takes corporate money and who doesn't and the bernie sanders style is what people look for now when virtually all democrats are running it in this environment

do take business donations. so, these are getting a little blurry. mayor mclaughlin has been in the primary as a candidate the lieutenant governor is running for the state assembly seats surrounding richmond who's always been a registered democrat though part of the progress of the ligands and peace running as a democrat. it's been changed in california in a way that has regulated the third parties. we have a jungle primary system, so everybody is thrown into the same pot and legislative races and congressional races and senate races. now there is one big primary.

they all run in the primary intd the top to make it on the ballot in the fall. that's after the space to kind of buildin build an electoral ft is a different kind of brand and a different kind of platform and a different kind of identifiable program at the local level where the legislation is predominantly democrat but the party organization is a truly fairly weak so when you build a membership based on the political party, do you do that kind of groundwork to progressives have been doing for more than a decade even though the other side is spending 30-1 is dated in 2014, you could still find.

>> other questions from people that have been involved in a recent campaign here in baltimore? >> if you get up to that microphone you are going to be hearing from people for months. i'm interested in leadership development. the issues mentioned the organizing and rent control. what were some of the other issues in the period of a decade or 15 years and was there a platform or what did it look

like? >> i will pass out a little membership card actually that shows. the way that it's structured right now is an overly rigid but it's to make the leadership in important thing that people join and elect an annual membership 25 to 30 member steering committee and there's the quarterly membership hearings a year to pay to make decisions about the candidates and campaigns. the steering committee meets monthly and they are open to any members to observe the last

couple of years as i try to describe in the book founding mothers and fathers made i think a very important decision to kind of step back and create space for younger black latino, asian activists to move up into leadership positions, so the committee today, like in the past, is predominantly female. people of color and much younger people in the past. ..

>> >> as in baltimore prior to 2005 the police department was unrepresentative they were beating shooting killing people costing the city millions of dollars of damage settlements for reforming the police department was a priority. already dealing with housing affordability trying to improve municipal labor relations and making chevron pay its fair share of taxes taxes, developing that

industrial safety ordinance with the cause of the refinery accidents and explosions to immigrant rights and neutralizing net influence of chevron money in politics i would highly recommend people to explore of matching funds part of the candidates have been successful because they developed a bernie sanders style base of small donors in richmond you can get public matching funds when you have the fund-raising capacity. it is not six / one that help progressives run for city council. pour live just adopted a formula similar to that. and it is leveling the

playing field with reform. the other side is not needed they have super pac expenditures in those who can't max out her candidate but progressives with those bareboned budgets the that injection of public money. so i would recommend that is one goal to explore. >> one more why those older white people were willing to give up power?. >> because that isn't happening with our unions. and with a of a co-president and a little bit on the geriatric side tapping into that the idealism and enthusiasm those involved in

the dirty campaign -- bernie sanders campaign last fall they have to have a seat at the table and of voice so that exceptional behavior was exemplary. but they still consult and volunteer but they don't try to run things and that is something we need not to always try to do. why don't we have more new members? you need some structural changes both racially and ethnically and age wise and also the opposition was using no lack

of diversity don't go for a the candidate of the richmond plantation alliance and with those white radical defeatist who want to shut our people down if you are not rooted in the committee -- community with indigenous leadership you are painted as the auslander - - outsider with the agenda as the majority have the of population.

>> other people? spec have a question i am wondering how progressive forces are speaking about justification? i know richmond is very poor right now they given those tremendous pressures in the bay area they are coming down the pipe and how are they thinking to beat - - for that structural control? >> excellent question. there is a chapter in the book that basically deals with the byproduct of success. if you make a city that is scarred by dirty polluting industry than the good news

is that chevron is to be sociable with crime and corruption and city hall disruption and chevron. but now they are displaced through the housing crisis now the neck stop is richmond. it is a good blend landlords couldn't raise those as high as they were like but definitely that led to a decline in population following the pattern of san francisco so read control was the stopgap measure. but it holds the of line and the limits imposed by the state legislature was by 10,000 units are 40,000 people with rent-controlled

only applies to pre-1995 housing so that is interfering with the broader protection. so affordable housing in richmond this is a debate without waterfront development projects with that market rate housing but they don't want to build a mixed in, housing. so there has been very strict enforcement in different places called of leakage feet have the city council can drive the much harder bargain with the developer.

you do want development and jobs and housing but if people come in they will help find affordable housing somewhere else and i and a stand there has been some problems collecting those fees with the threat and the trend of gentrification. to have a cafe or the restaurant for the safer streets decent food bin restores why shouldn't everybody have access? is associated with displacement getting the benefit and with the same city saw one of those challenges ahead and

then to maintain this incredible diversity to keep the city's affordable for the working class people i think they have unfairly done some work as a bad reputation not everybody wants to live next door because you get ahold chevron speak to the fire with a better corporate behavior and less contributions that is a full-time job itself dealing with the big oil with the larger debates right now and that accumulation of companies like best sunday

unbelievably detailed federal agency the causes of this fire filed by the city with a damage suit against chevron over the civil penalties and it only costs the taxpayers $40 million a year whenever there is a major chemical plant with it the explosion that they're doing the detailed report. to eliminate that chemical safety board. part of that broader undermining of the osha epa but the notion there is too much regulation of big oil.

and then with this 2012. and then to seek medical attention. in 2012 chevron had $250 billion in worldwide revenue profits for 26 billion so a million-dollar fine that they still have not paid is the slap of the rest so when you tangle with a company like best you have to go to every direction all the ties with workplace safety and carbon emissions and the hazards living downwind from a refinery. other parts of the of bay area and then to dominate

the old industrial landscape >> i don't know much about rand control i went --- a wish i did but what i do know with section 8 one thing i had taken a lot of issue with his of willingness to invest in their property so without exception county will force or insure that there still investing in their properties?. >> that is a very good

question. not just the apartment owners association last fall where it was on the ballot they made that argument they would have have less incentive there are some commercial landlords in richmond that when they have rights and can only be evicted with a showing of a just cause like workers getting the protection of the union dave will be more willing to bring those demands without a retaliatory rent hike as established as the annual cap you'll see how it plays

out. >> but the protection from being evicted but then have the backbone to ask the landlord. >> but strength of the tenant organizations now there have been rent strikes in the campaign. to bring about those bad landlords organizing tenants to speak about their problems period rent-controlled situation is if you have a problem lamp word and want to win negative -- landlord then you could be evicted or the

landlord would tell you take the conditions as they are or i will kick you out. so people feel empowered and more protected of these retaliatory you rate hikes. so the landlords who tried to benefit from that impending passage did not get that profit unnecessarily from that. but for many landlords renting will still be profitable many still have a good reputation. but no doubt why single out housing? wise to those other basic expenses be regulated? why pick on us?

it is better if we had hundreds of millions spent by the state government in california on building affordable public housing there may be less scrapping of rent-controlled but that will not happen under trump in the meantime this is the best band-aids solution that there richmond advocates could come up with a stolen those neighboring cities like santa cisco that had rent-controlled 35 years it is a very expensive place to live but those other in their apartments because there is rand control if not there would've been pushed out long ago. that is the of best answer i can give with the housing

stock that deteriorates those that try to campaign for repeal based on the market responds -- suspense san miguel have given a lot of success stories i am from albuquerque mexico so we are learning from you back in albuquerque but but sharing the mistakes that you made. >> you could find it in the book there was a community why a debate of the soda tax to raise money for the preschool program and our fringe bernie sanders came

out saying it was a regressive tax for those that need to be through taxation. in putting a penny per ounce tax on the ballot this is of project of the great guy a long term cardiologists in his dave the medical practice looking at the epidemic of obesity now childhood obesity due to poor diet or consumption of sugary drinks. ahead of the curve so richmond stuck his head out of the trench and put this attacks on the ballot so

with that chevron spending so as we described in the book that made this the race class issue from paul so they mobilize small latino girl she stores young people of color to begin the of former mayor of san francisco the plantation alliance with that ministate scheme on people of color to deprive them of the pleasures and to their credit there were few black ministers with the black public health workers who said we have some historical connections but it went down

three / one and that is the only election cycle where no progressive candidates but both were defeated because of the $3 billion worth putting big soda and big oil and what they have done to overcome many and politics is too much. to see that backlash with a much-needed public health measure and philadelphia us got it through. and now presented as a revenue in cancer. but that backfired so people

learn from that. and then it does give the economic benefit. and then people will go for that. >> one of the toughest things is appealing to workers while attacking a the workers and i would say if that is the case with chevron i am curious to know how you handle that in people have ambivalent feelings or the fear that it

is going to be away. >> ground zero so how you create that alliance? with those environmental activists. workplace safety or environmental protection so were i live in is a beautiful spot which imports a quarter of a of million with a huge burlington northern santa fe as far as the eye could see it was mr. buffett bomb trade war in buffett owns of railroad.

and then have to wear 3,000 people for their livelihood so then you are surrounded with examples of workers or employment involving extraction and/or the use of fossil fuel so one of the things i described in the book is the difficulty the environmental movement faces making this idea of a transition with job security in the oil industry many people may remember as a pioneer as of leader was one of the first people to build these coalitions with the

refinery workers and those steelworkers are now part of have a nationwide oil workers strike in the bay area the expression of solidarity the sierra club and they all went up to new the picket line in the steel workers overwhelmingly had public support about limiting or contracting out to those refinery operators the right to shut down and refuse to do that all of them were designed to make that workplace safer to

reduce the risk of those refinery fighters -- fires and accidents to affect their neighbors. they found common ground but there is a script within the labor force with the old industrial union and those with the building trades and sadly they participate in the chevron political action committee and have been part of the of politician they won't fight for refinery safety rules and have no interest in those alliances.

but the steelworkers have a real challenge with the 67 years after it was organized in with those other industrial unions to collect those dues or agency fees. and then the contracting out to the building trades. and the leadership passed to be very careful if they push the envelope to get involved with those environmental groups because the company goes out and encourages those steelworker members because there is no union security language in the contract.

and then to run for reelection. there are case is in the past where they were voted in the office. >> bus safety representative came out of the refinery with 12 years of experience one of the of leaders of the campaign during the strike was involved with local bargaining with chevron and refuse the safety related to meighen's been indicted notice from the company canceling saying he had to come back to work and he was forced to quit without a full pension coverage period the retaliatory traveling to

australia three times fighting over the of liquid gas operations sell those blue-collar workers in the fossil fuel based industry takes a real risk to embrace those environmental causes. a lot of other unions take a stint on environmental protection is a lot easier to do it if they don't have that skin in the game. if somebody started off then we saw how they voted sadly last year in west virginia parts of ohio and southern illinois bernie was on the balanced budget in any went

for trump and with those false claims he will said revive the coal industry risk of losing the of pensions and the disability benefits they kickoff -- check it out on hillary but when day here about the super fund and green jobs are the wave of the future looking at the coal miners is not a pretty picture. >> we have to beef up the concrete plans for that transition to build a stronger movement based on that experience locally.

>> now unfortunately last week with participation of the paris agreement, what can we do as citizens, at talking about climate justice what can we do to get our own congress people? at this point to get something together? there is a lot of concerns here. what is being done?. >> the current mayor. not so good on rent-controlled or the minimum wage with those paris climate talks as part of an international meeting of mayors and has been a very big supporter of community choice aggregation

and 85 percent of the customers of pacific gas and electric in richmond get their electricity from renewable energy sources provided by a nonprofit for-profit called clean energy so other things that municipalities can do is reduce their own dependence on electricity generated through hurting the fossil fuel and that is something richmond has tried to promote as the community benefits agreement negotiated as a quid pro quo for what is still going on line to get funding for a program to employ two or 300

people and eventually provide solar generating electricity to the homes in richmond. at that municipal level initiative to take similar steps there is still the possibility of local progress on many environmental fronts even with jerry brown in the legislature the growth of energy is practical and achievable and widespread and this is for the cities to adopt.

>> we want to remind you. it is great to support independent bookstores. and we're selling it for full price. you'll also get a 10% discount. if you want to buy this book for the city council believing give you a bigger discount. thirty%. >> we need lower independent bookstores for the co-ops. build on this model. creative marketing.

[applause] [inaudible conversations] . >> thanks for coming over this event.