Bay Area
Cesar Zepeda Wins Richmond District 2 Election by 3 Votes After Recount
Zepeda said he was looking forward to working with his constituents, including Butt, on the issues facing his district and the city. The District 2 councilmember represents areas of the city including portions of Hilltop, North Richmond, Point Richmond and parts of Marina Bay.

The Richmond Standard
A recount in the District 2 election resulted in a victory for Cesar Zepeda by three votes over Andrew Butt, according to the Contra Costa County Elections Division.
In the November election, Zepeda and Butt received the exact same number of votes: 1,921. Zepeda was later declared winner of the stalemate after his name, rather than Butt’s, was pulled from a bag by the city clerk, per city policy.
Butt’s campaign requested a recount, which was completed on Dec. 23. The recount had Zepeda winning the election with 1,921 votes, and Butt just behind with 1,918 votes.
The recount involved manual counts of paper ballots, Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia stated in a post on social media. Gioia said one of the changes to the final result was the discounting of a vote from a resident living just outside district boundaries.
Another case involved an “X drawn over the pencil mark bubble for the candidate indicating the voter didn’t want to vote for that candidate after first marking it,” Gioia said. “The machine would read it as a vote for that candidate.”
Following the result, Butt congratulated Zepeda on a hard-fought victory.
“This has been one for the books, that’s for sure,” Butt said. “I’ll continue to work to make Richmond a better place, it just won’t be from behind the dais.”
Zepeda said the recount provided compelling proof that every vote counts.
“Next election, make sure to get out and vote,” he said. “One vote can make a difference.”
Zepeda said he was looking forward to working with his constituents, including Butt, on the issues facing his district and the city. The District 2 councilmember represents areas of the city including portions of Hilltop, North Richmond, Point Richmond and parts of Marina Bay.
A recount was also conducted in the Antioch City Council District 1 race. There was no change after the recount, with Tamisha Torres-Walker prevailing with 1,467 votes, Joy Motts following with 1,463 votes and Diane Gibson-Gray with 1,338 votes.
Clerk-Recorder-Registrar Debi Cooper reiterated the importance of voting. She said recounts have been rare in her 33 years at the department and lauded her elections team for performing “above and beyond.”
“These recounts confirmed the integrity of the elections through a transparent audit process,” Cooper said.
The final official report for this election is posted on the Contra Costa County Elections website and can be found at www.contracostavote.gov.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

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Bay Area
Chevron Richmond Installs Baker Hughes Flare.IQ, Real-time Flare Monitoring, Control and Reduction System
While the sight of flaring can cause concern in the community, flares are essential safety systems that burn pollutants to prevent them from being released directly into the atmosphere. They activate during startup and shut-down of facility units or during upsets or equipment malfunctions. The typical flare stack is about 200 feet high so that vapors are well above street levels.

The Richmond Standard
Chevron Richmond recently installed flare.IQ, a real-time, automated system that will improve the facility’s flaring performance.
The technology, developed by Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business, uses sensors to monitor, reduce and control flaring in real time. It collects and assesses data on refinery processes, such as temperature, pressure, gas flow and gas composition, and adjusts accordingly to ensure flares burn more efficiently and cleanly, leading to fewer emissions.
“The cleaner the flare, the brighter the flame can look,” said Duy Nguyen, a Chevron Richmond flaring specialist. “If you see a brighter flame than usual on a flare, that actually means flare.IQ is operating as intended.”
While the sight of flaring can cause concern in the community, flares are essential safety systems that burn pollutants to prevent them from being released directly into the atmosphere. They activate during startup and shut-down of facility units or during upsets or equipment malfunctions. The typical flare stack is about 200 feet high so that vapors are well above street levels.
“A key element in Baker Hughes’ emissions abatement portfolio, flare.IQ has a proven track record in optimizing flare operations and significantly reducing emissions,” said Colin Hehir, vice president of Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business. “By partnering with Chevron Richmond, one of the first operators in North America to adopt flare.IQ, we are looking forward to enhancing the plant’s flaring operations.”
The installation of flare.IQ is part of a broader and ongoing effort by Chevron Richmond to improve flare performance, particularly in response to increased events after the new, more efficient hydrogen plant was brought online in 2019.
Since then, the company has invested $25 million — and counting — into flare minimization. As part of the effort, a multidisciplinary refinery team was formed to find and implement ways to improve operational reliability and ultimately reduce flaring. Operators and other employees involved in management of flares and flare gas recovery systems undergo new training.
“It is important to me that the community knows we are working hard to lower emissions and improve our flaring performance,” Nguyen said.
Also evolving is the process by which community members are notified of flaring incidents. The Community Warning System (CWS), operated by Contra Costa County is an “all-hazard” public warning system.
Residents can opt-in to receive alerts via text, e-mail and landline. The CWS was recently expanded to enable residents to receive notifications for “Level 1” incidents, which are considered informational as they do not require any community action.
For more information related to these topics, check out the resources included on the Chevron Richmond, CAER and Contra Costa Health websites. Residents are also encouraged to follow @chevronrichmond and @RFDCAOnline on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), where additional information may be posted during an incident.
Activism
Oakland Hosts Town Hall Addressing Lead Hazards in City Housing
According to the city, there are 22,000 households in need of services for lead issues, most in predominantly low-income or Black and Latino neighborhoods, but only 550 to 600 homes are addressed every year. The city is hoping to use part of the multimillion-dollar settlement to increase the number of households served each year.

By Magaly Muñoz
The City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department hosted a town hall in the Fruitvale to discuss the efforts being undertaken to remove lead primarily found in housing in East and West Oakland.
In 2021, the city was awarded $14 million out of a $24 million legal settlement from a lawsuit against paint distributors for selling lead-based paint that has affected hundreds of families in Oakland and Alameda County. The funding is intended to be used for lead poisoning reduction and prevention services in paint only, not water or other sources as has been found recently in schools across the city.
The settlement can be used for developing or enhancing programs that abate lead-based paint, providing services to individuals, particularly exposed children, educating the public about hazards caused by lead paint, and covering attorney’s fees incurred in pursuing litigation.
According to the city, there are 22,000 households in need of services for lead issues, most in predominantly low-income or Black and Latino neighborhoods, but only 550 to 600 homes are addressed every year. The city is hoping to use part of the multimillion-dollar settlement to increase the number of households served each year.
Most of the homes affected were built prior to 1978, and 12,000 of these homes are considered to be at high risk for lead poisoning.
City councilmember Noel Gallo, who represents a few of the lead-affected Census tracts, said the majority of the poisoned kids and families are coming directly from neighborhoods like the Fruitvale.
“When you look at the [kids being admitted] at the children’s hospital, they’re coming from this community,” Gallo said at the town hall.
In order to eventually rid the highest impacted homes of lead poisoning, the city intends to create programs and activities such as lead-based paint inspections and assessments, full abatement designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint, or partial abatement for repairs, painting, and specialized cleaning meant for temporary reduction of hazards.
In feedback for what the city could implement in their programming, residents in attendance of the event said they want more accessibility to resources, like blood testing, and information from officials about lead poisoning symptoms, hotlines for assistance, and updates on the reduction of lead in their communities.
Attendees also asked how they’d know where they are on the prioritization list and what would be done to address lead in the water found at several school sites in Oakland last year.
City staff said there will be a follow-up event to gather more community input for programming in August, with finalizations happening in the fall and a pilot launch in early 2026.
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