Thank you so much for being here.
My name is Gayle McLaughlin and I am running for Richmond City Council.
Let me begin by sharing a little bit about myself.

I was born into a working class union family in Chicago, and that is where the seeds of my political consciousness were planted. When I was a teenager, events occurred in Chicago that heightened my awareness of the grave problems facing our society.

Many of you may remember the violence that occurred in Chicago during the week of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Well, one day during that week, I encountered my mother, fixated on the television, in a state of shock and anger. She was watching live coverage of demonstrators against the war in Vietnam being clubbed, beaten, maced, and arrested by police. My mother was stunned, and she kept repeating "Look at what they’re doing” over and over again, as if she couldn’t believe her own eyes.

My mother, though not an activist, was a woman of strong principles and the brutality against those young protestors totally unnerved her. She, who still had teenagers at home, felt the pain and injustice as if the blows were falling on her own children...and the fact of the matter is that this type of behavior DOES affect every man, woman, and child.

I don’t know if my mother realized how much she impacted me that day, but her outrage delivered me into a new view of the world. I became aware that there are some things in life that have to be denounced with all the fighting power one can muster.

Today I stand here as a working class woman who has fought many fights for justice since that day in 1968. I have taken the road that so many of us here in this room have taken ...choosen the path of activism, knowing that nothing changes without the changers. I’Ave played a leadership role in solidarity groups like CISPES (the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador); I’Ave worked in Chicago with PUSH and the Rainbow coalition; I took part in a national progressive networking effort, called the North Star Network, advocating unity to bring about social change.
I took time, in the midst of my activist life, to finish college and complete 2 years graduate study in psychology, seeking to gain a better understanding of the human condition and how to change things.

Then, I moved to the Bay Area. Here, I worked as a teacher and as a tutor for children with learning disabilities, putting forth my best effort to improve young lives and young minds. More recently...as a member of the steering committee of the Richmond Greens and on the county council of the Green Party of Contra Costa, I have found myself at the intersection of many new struggles for peace, democracy, economic, social and environmental justice.

As a Richmond resident, I have watched with horror the worsening of life in Richmond – the mismanagement, the corruption, the financial ruin, the irresponsibility with public funds, the servitude to ChevronTexaco, the pollution, the police brutality, and on and on. Some residents of Richmond may find these horrors compelling enough to run for cover to another city, another place. Yet Richmond has so much potential.

*The community here is as rich as a rainforest with so many beautiful and talented people.
* Our geography, especially our shoreline, is magnificent.
*The infrastructure for transforming Richmond exists, if only we act on our own behalf and put it to good use.

We, the people of Richmond, with our full array of cultural diversity, have the capacity to weave a beautiful tapestry together. So I'm not running for cover from the mess created by the current city council. I'm staying put and telling them with all my determination: It is time for change. It’s time for progressive values and ideas to govern in Richmond. We need to end the ineptitude and the chaos. And allow me to tell you, with all humility: I can do far better than many of the people currently sitting on the council.

We cannot stand by and watch our city become more and more dysfunctional.
We can wait no longer to restore the health of Richmond. The financial health of the city is in crisis. But real and practical solutions exist. For starters, the oil industry needs to pay its fair share of taxes. We need to eliminate the special cap on the utility users tax, which benefits only ChevronTexaco.

For too long, we have endured a 10 person city council...9 elected officials and ChevronTexaco. This must change. And we must also restore the moral health, the very soul and character of our city, based on personal, local, and global responsibility. Our key moral values are to be found in our respect and love for the people and for the people’s planet

So we need to restore the financial health, the moral health, and surely we cannot forget the environmental health. Our environment is in dire need of protection, restoration, and revitalization. Yet there are some people who would sacrifice the beauty, the ecological value, and the community health that our open space along the bay brings us. Instead, they would compromise this essential open space for the sake of development.

Lastly, in order to fully restore the health of Richmond, we need to restore the fundamental concepts of justice and fairness in all policy-making. So, here I am, asking for your support and asking that you support Andres Soto, as well as all other Richmond Progressive Alliance candidates as they emerge.

I assure you that I will put all my mind and heart into representing the aspirations, the values and the ideas that we share, and the ones I hope to hear from you in the coming months of the campaign. I am here today, we are here today, because we are angry, we are outraged, and we are saddened....and, frankly, we are unwilling to put up with the situation anymore. But we are here also because we care about and because we love our city, our people, our community, our state and our poor, ailing nation gasping for breathe under such reactionary control.

I am here, we are here, because we have hope and confidence that alternative values can redirect our city towards that progressive nation that we aspire to be. For this we need progressive values and unity. I think, and what’s more important, we think, that it still might be possible for our nation to gain the respect and appreciation from the people and nations of the world. For this we also need progressive values and unity.

We are paving the road right here, as we begin our fight for a progressive Richmond. And this journey begins in each of our hearts, in each neighborhood, in each city hall meeting, and in each decision made. So all my willingness and all my determination is offered here today, yet it remains only a starting point. I seek to be a conduit for your aspirations and a spokesperson for your dreams.

I want to be your councilperson, casting votes in your favor, and representing your interest. And with your support I, Gayle McLaughlin, will do that, only that, and always that!

Thank you very much for your attention and also for your support.