East Bay Business Times
Posted on Friday, April 6, 2007

McLaughlin Acts on Green Pledge

By Mavis Scanlon
East Bay Business Times

During her campaign, Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin pledged to introduce policies that would attract green businesses and improve public health and the environment in the city, which has been plagued by high levels of industrial pollutants, not to mention high crime rates, aging infrastructure and cuts in city services.

In forming a Department of the Environment, McLaughlin wants to focus first on environmental health and justice, said Parin Shah, an aide to the mayor who will oversee the department's creation.

Richmond includes "communities that are disenfranchised, that have not been well looked after by elected officials" said Shah, who was president of the San Francisco Commission on the Environment and also ran the nonprofit Urban Accords Institute that brought the United Nations together with 50 U.S. mayors to sign the 2005 Urban Environmental Accords.

The first steps in creating the department will be to assess what resources the city has and what it needs when it comes to the impact of pollution on residents. Shah will also find funds for the department. Some likely sources are federal grants and city-state partnerships. The department will also take on waste and recycling issues.