Why am I running for City Council?

By Tom Butt

For 35 years, I have heard Richmond described as a "diamond in the rough," but I've never related to that analogy. It infers that all Richmond needs to reach its exceptional potential is a cut and a shine.

The questions I am most often asked are, "How do you do it?" and "How do you put up with those people?" meaning some of my fellow councilmembers.

As a 35-year resident of Richmond, I am heavily invested and fully committed to make Richmond the best it can be. I live here; my kids went to school here and my business is here. My kids also work here. Everything I have is here.

For 35 years, I have heard Richmond described as a "diamond in the rough," but I've never related to that analogy. It infers that all Richmond needs to reach its exceptional potential is a cut and a shine.

That's incredibly misleading. Richmond is far from just needing some finishing touches. Richmond is in need of a major overhaul. In the first comprehensive survey ever taken of a wide sample of Richmond residents just a little over a year ago, only 1% of those surveyed rated the quality of life in Richmond as excellent. 36% rated it as poor. That's not all. Of all of the 43 cities between 64,000 and 149,000 that used the same survey, where respondents were asked. "How do you rate the overall quality of life," Richmonders rated themselves dead last with 27 on a scale of 100. When compared to all 212 cities, Richmond still came in dead last.

Despite this discouraging news, I know that Richmond has tremendous potential, but to fully realize that potential requires massive amounts of hard work from a lot of incredibly dedicated people with widely diversified skills. Those kinds of people are here in Richmond, and they are toiling every day to make Richmond a better place. They are your neighborhood council presidents, board members and volunteers in a hundred nonprofit organizations, members of city boards, commissions and committees, teachers and cops, city managers and gardeners. And yes, your city council members.

I am just one of them, bringing my own set of skills to bear on this challenge as a member of the City Council. This is not my only involvement in making Richmond a better place, but it is one where I believe I can continue to make a difference. As the only business owner on the City Council, I bring my business experience and skills to make sure our city government is run efficiently, is responsive to its customers and is on sound financial footing. As an architect, planner and sometime developer, I bring my education and training in planning and design to make sure our land use decisions are sound and our plans for future growth are headed the right direction. As chair of the Local Government Commission, a statewide organization committed to smart growth, I bring my collaboration with city council members and county supervisors statewide to make sure Richmond is ahead of the curve and taking advantage of every available opportunity to become a sustainable city with a growing quality of life.

I also bring my leadership skills. I have been leading people to accomplish tangible objectives for nearly 40 years. I served as a Corps of Engineers Army officer in Vietnam in a headquarters organization responsible for thousands of military personnel and civilian contractors, building roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure. I built my own architecture-engineering form from scratch, one of the largest in the Bay Area.