The night of Dia de los Muertos, Lucero Muñoz was selling her bacon wrapped hot dogs on the street when a policeman approached her. “‘I told you I don’t want to see you here,’” he said and asked her to turn over her cart. The onions, sausages, jalapeños and hot dogs ended up scattered on the ground. “I felt so humiliated,” said Muñoz, as she remembered the incident. But that, she decided in late November, would be the last time.  Dressed up and feeling happy and nervous at the same time, Muñoz headed to City Hall. She had one goal — to get a street merchant’s permit — a piece of legitimacy that only 16 Mission carts hold, according to Alfreddie Steward, the administrative permit officer for the San Francisco Police Department. While the hipster street cart vendors of the Mission District get invited to official functions, many who have long worked the Mission’s streets are more likely to get a $250 ticket than an invitation. Officer Steward estimates that some 35 to 40 vendors operate in the Mission District without a license. Muñoz is one of them and in the past two years she’s gotten ten tickets. Her trip to become a legal vendor offers a lesson into what even city officials call an outdated permitting system. “There is an underground economy of street vendors because permitting by the city is nearly impossible,” said Martha Yanez, Business Case Manager at the Small Business Assistance Center. Yanez works one on one at the Office of Small Business in City Hall and says the odds of getting a permit fail to favor the many merchants who walk into her office every day. “I don’t want to discourage them,” said Yanez. “The best I can do is explain the procedures so they don’t enter the process blindly.” In that spirit Yanez sat with Muñoz at a small round table inside the Office of Small Business to explain the procedures. The first step for Muñoz would be to go in person to the Police Department at 850 Bryant Street and file an application for the Pushcart Peddler Permit. Getting one is particularly difficult because the street merchant has to locate two blocks or 600 feet away from an established business selling the same type of food. Meeting that requirement in the Mission is nearly impossible because of the number of existing establishments. “The officer that processes the permit is the one that decides what is considered the ‘same type of food,’” said Yanez. “Maybe there is a grocery store nearby. That can be considered the same food and the permit would be denied.” The application also requires a $594 non-refundable fee. According to Officer Steward, police let vendors apply more than once under the same fee. “We don’t have to, but if the application is denied, as a courtesy, we let the person apply once or twice again without paying the fee,” he said. Even if a merchant gets the Pushcart Peddler Permit, the second step is also daunting: the health department’s permit. To get one, food vendors need to show that they are cooking their food in a licensed kitchen, Yanez said, “There is no such thing as a home licensed kitchen.” Once they have the health permit, the other requirements — a business license, registering the business and getting a sellers permit — are straightforward. After one hour, Muñoz left the Office of Small Business with a load of papers, brochures and her attitude still intact. “I won’t get discouraged,” she said to no one in particular, but wondered aloud if she would be able to get a license. Only a few do. One is Maria del Carmen Flores, who sells a variety of pupusas, tamales and plantain chips. She also distributes her products directly to restaurants. Flores got her health permit by using the kitchens at La Cocina, a non-profit that rents licensed commercial kitchen space at an affordable rate. She uses the kitchen three days a week and pays from $650 to $770 monthly. “I’m always grateful to the ones that had helped me,” said Flores referring to La Cocina and the non-profit Women’s Initiative. Flores is one of 35 small businesses that use La Cocina, but “hardly any of them are street vendors because it’s so hard to do,” said Leticia Landa, Program Associate of La Cocina. Flores, for example, only has a health permit because she sells in farmers markets or directly to restaurants. This means she doesn’t need a Pushcart Peddler Permit. Yanez says it’s not the fees street cart vendors complain about, but the difficulty of the process. She often hears from them “‘We’ll pay but just give us the permits.’” Officer Steward from the Police Department acknowledged that the restrictions on permits are difficult. “Some of the rules are old and need to change,” he said, but added that it wasn’t up to the police.  “It’s not the police that write the rules, we just enforce them.” Sandra Murillo who works for Women’s Initiative as a small business consultant said she understands that the Health Department is defending consumer rights by imposing regulations, but added, “It is devastating for the merchants when their food gets thrown away. Yanez said there are so many informal vendors that it would be smart for the city to find a way to formalize them. “Customers are interested in buying and merchants are interested in selling. If the street food remains underground the city loses.” La Cocina agreed and said the interest in street food is only growing. This past August 22nd, La Cocina organized the San Francisco Street Food Festival. Thirty vendors participated. Some were people that use the kitchen at La Cocina, others were local restaurants and the majority were informal vendors that for the first time had a space to sell their products legally. Muñoz was among them selling her bacon wrapped hot dogs. The event went from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm and was a success. “Crowds of people showed up and there were long lines of customers,” said Landa,

Since his infancy, the strong and sweet smell of freshly baked pastries has invaded the apartment Sergio Flores and his family rented above Dianda’s Bakery on Mission Street.  His father worked as a baker and as a little boy, Sergio would come down the stairs to be close to his father and spend time with the bakers. Flores is now 26 but the sweet smell of his childhood remains in his life. The Italian Dianda family, who opened the bakery in 1962, sold it six years ago to his father and two other bakers. Today, the three co-owners still wake up as early as 2 a.m. to bake. Flores remains near his father, working behind the counter. “I like working here because you see people grow older,” the young Flores said, referring to the customers whose loyalty to the bakery has passed from generation to generation. “My mom has been coming here for 40 years,” said Margaret de la Cruz, who remembers her mom buying cakes from Dianda’s when she was a little girl growing up in the Mission. Now, de la Cruz, 38, has two little girls of her own and returns to her childhood neighborhood only for the bakery. When Floyd Goldberg, Sergio Flores and Luis Peña bought the business in 2004, they kept the same employees, the same routines and the same Italian recipes. But they did add a few things. “We had to add the Torta de tres leches,” said Goldberg, referring to the light, spongy cake popular among Latin Americans. They also added pecan torts and brownies. “This is my famous New York Brownie with walnuts,” said Goldberg, a Brooklyn native. When asked why it is famous, he said, “I use quality products, fresh walnuts and I do the mix from scratch.” Mina Urrutia, a senior who preferred to keep her age a secret, came all the way from her home in Daly City to buy a pannetone. Dianda’s has the traditional Italian Christmas cake throughout the year. “This is my favorite place to buy pastries. I always come here to get something,” said Urrutia, who lived in the Mission 50 years ago. Dianda’s tradition is kept by the co-owners, but just in case, Pascuale Dianda, one of the previous owners, still bakes on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 5 a.m. he 66-year-old started baking when his father Elio bought the bakery 47 years ago.  In those days, he said, the Mission was filled with Irish, Italians and Germans. He was only 18, but became his father’s trusted right-hand man because unlike his father, he spoke English. His father left the family’s hometown of Lucca in Tuscany after World War II and brought his skills as a pastry chef to America. He bought a bakery that had existed since 1906 – a time when trains still ran through the Mission. “We worked 70, 80, 90 hours a week,” Dianda said, recalling the work it took to succeed. When the Dianda brothers where ready to sell in 2004, they made it possible for their employees to buy the business. “Our tradition will be kept with these guys,” said Dianda. Nowadays, the bakery still has the inscription “Elio Dianda & Sons” at the entrance. The walls still have some black and white pictures of Enrichetta and Elio Dianda, the founders who passed away in the 1970s and 1980s. In one photograph, the brothers Armando, Floreano and Pascuale look young, wearing their white aprons and working with the dough. “I still get a lot of phone calls at home for orders,” said Dianda, who lives in Redwood City. He tells them to call the bakery instead but enjoys being involved. When the bakery was sold, he agreed to consult and help with administration and accounting for a year.  That was nearly six years ago.  “They don’t want me to go away,” Dianda said. “He is number one,” agreed Leean Tuscanelli, pointing at Dianda. Tuscanelli is the manager and an employee who has been working at the bakery for 30 years. There are other longtime employees who work behind the counter. Mirella Mora has worked for 16 years at the bakery and Maria Gomez for 18 years. “We knew them when they were not the owners and we got along pretty well,” she said referring to the new co-owners. “We are a union shop,” said Dianda. The bakery has two unions, one for the bakers and one for the clerks. “That has been my philosophy behind the business, to treat employees well.” “The owners are always motivating us and they are understanding that we have families,” said Martin Gallegos, who has been making deliveries for the bakery for four years. He thinks the pastries are delicious and sees a future in his job. Dianda’s Bakery, he said, has yet to experience any layoffs and it’s unlikely that there will be any with the holiday season just starting. “You can see a line of people trying to get in during holidays,” said co-owner Goldberg. “During Christmas the line goes all the way to the corner,” Tuscanelli added. Mission Local NOVEMBER 17, 2009

When she was in the first grade, Yassna Ahmadi had a hard time understanding her classmates and teacher. At home her family only spoke Farsi. Now a third grader, Ahmadi just won first place in a writing contest and read her essay in front of an audience, speaking flawless English. “As some of you may know, I was born in Berkeley, California but my parents came to the United States from Afghanistan many years ago,” she read from her essay. The child of immigrant parents, Ahmadi is not alone, especially in the West Contra Costa School District, where one third of the students are non-native English speakers. Because so many of its students are English learners, the district organizes the Annual Reclassification Award Ceremony. This event celebrates the accomplishments of children have been “reclassified,” which means that the kids have become fully proficient in English and are no longer considered English learners. On Tuesday, hundreds of immigrant families supported their children at the 11th such award ceremony. More than 900 kids received their diplomas this year and the winners of the 2010 school district essay contest read their work aloud at the Richmond Civic Center Auditorium. “Proficiency in English as a second language is a great effort and shows hard work,” said Marin Trujillo, Community Engagement Coordinator for the school district. “This school district is the only one in California that organizes an event of this kind,” said Trujillo, pointing out that the achievement of English proficiency is often overlooked. To achieve reclassification, the school district considers at a number of elements. “We look at the whole picture,” said Susan Dunlap, the district’s English Learner Service Coordinator. The students have to pass the California English Language Development Test and the California Standards Test. The district requires an essay written at the fluency level of a native English speaker. The students also need to learn grade-level content taught in English and their parents are consulted about their kids being ready for reclasification. “It’s challenging to learn math and science in a language in which you are not proficient,” said Dunlap. She explained that English learner students get academic support from the schools until they are reclassified. According to the 2010 school district census, 9,556 out of the district’s 30,000 students are considered English learners. There are 75 different languages spoken among them, but 82 percent of the students speak Spanish. The most commonly spoken languages after Spanish are Filipino, Vietnamese, Punjabi, Mien, Arabic, Cantonese, Lao and Urdu. Students who identify themselves as Latino make up 52 percent of the district’s students. However, a student who speaks a language other than English as their native language does not necessarily need to be reclassified. Some students are already bilingual and proficient at both languages, explained Dunlap. According to Dunlap, reclassified students from the West Contra Costa District do better on the California High School Exit Examination than all other student groups in the district. Last year 92 percent passed, the highest pass rate in the county and state for reclassified students. “We believe that they are well prepared to continue their studies,” Dunlap said. At the award ceremony, the presenters spoke in both English and Spanish or used a translator, making it a bilingual event. “Kathryn got into first grade and she didn’t know any English,” María Anchante, a Peruvian seamstress and single mother said in Spanish, of her 8-year old daughter Kathryn Navarro, who got a diploma at the ceremony. Anchante said that she speaks “very little” English, but that her daughter had a teacher who helped her after school. “She’s a great student. She’s always reading and writing,” said Anchante. “In the future, I would hope to be a writer. I want to write biographies,” said Navarro, satisfied with their achievement. Sometimes students get more help at home. That’s the case for Kevin Fereidooni, an 11-year-old student who is now officially proficient in English. His father, Nader, an Iranian immigrant would speak English to him as a baby and encourage him to watch cartoons on American TV. In the case of 5th grader Jan Charlie Sanchez, his father and sister speak English but his mother doesn’t. “During first grade I understood a little, but by second grade I understood everything, ” Sanchez said. His little brother Anthony is bilingual at the age of 6. During the ceremony family members cheered when each child got a diploma. “We are very proud that our son speaks perfect English,” Affra Valencia, Sanchez’s mother said in Spanish. June 4, 2010 Richmond Confidential

The story goes that back in the early 1900s, when workers were being paid with gold and signed warrants by marking an X, the railroad station agent in Pinole would go on a day-long, dangerous trip to Martinez to get their payment. That station agent was E. M. Downer, who created the Bank of Pinole. In 1907, he merged it with a financial institution in Richmond that soon was called the Mechanics Bank. “He wasn’t wealthy, but he was an entrepreneur and a charismatic man,” said Rauly Butler, the bank’s current senior vice president. Today, four generations later, Downer’s enterprise remains locally owned and a family majority-owned business. It kept its original name and it’s still a community bank. It’s Richmond’s oldest bank and the only one currently headquartered in Richmond, although it now has branches all around the Contra Costa County and in seven neighboring counties in northern California. At the end of last year, the Mechanics Bank had 670 employees; 42,977 personal banking clients and 9,664 business banking clients. The life, survival and success of the Mechanics Bank is closely tied to the history of Richmond, its hometown. During its early years, the Mechanics Bank was a place for local railroad workers in West Contra Costa County to cash their paychecks. These workers were called “mechanics” and that’s the reason for the bank’s name. The bank lent money so people could buy appliances such as refrigerators and freezers. “At that time, banks were not for the regular person,” said Butler. “Banks were known for lending money to businesses.” The Mechanics Bank was the first bank in the region to give personal loans. “Starting a bank for the mechanics — are you kidding? That was very unusual,” said Butler. But the bank served local businesses, too. During the 1920s, Richmond was a West Coast industrial center, home to major facilities for Standard Oil, the Santa Fe Railroad and the Ford Motor Company. The bank provided financial services for the corporations and their employees. Butler said that during the Great Depression, the bank survived a time of massive bank failures around the nation because of the support of Standard Oil, the City of Richmond and Richmond’s newspaper. The leaders of these organizations let the community know that they had full faith in the Mechanics Bank and were keeping their money in it, which  encouraged people to trust the bank, said Butler. In the 1940s, World War II brought local prosperity to Richmond. The city became the home of Kaiser Shipbuilding and with the shipyards 70,000 new residents arrived. The Mechanics Bank’s assets quadrupled from 1941 to 1945, becoming a major financial force in the East Bay. But once the war ended, the shipyard workers were no longer needed, leaving tens of thousands unemployed. According to Butler, the bank made public through the newspaper that no homeowner would lose his house, and worked with borrowers to avoid foreclosure. The community helped the bank during the Depression years, so “the bank returned the favor,” Butler said. During the 1990s, the bank expanded beyond West Contra Costa County for the first time, opening offices in Alameda, Marin, Napa, San Francisco and Sacramento counties. Today, after the 2008 financial crisis, the Mechanics Bank is still in business. “We didn’t need to take TARP money,” Butler said, but acknowledged that the recession had an impact on the bank. “Interest rates are low and that affects every bank.” As a community bank, the Mechanics Bank focuses on loaning money to local individuals and businesses. According to Butler, it didn’t need follow the trend of securitization of real estate mortgages to remain competitive in the stock market  “If we would have done that, we would be out of business today,” he said. Even the charitable donations Mechanics Bank makes stay in the community. “They volunteer in our special events, and help us with fundraising. They are significant financial sponsors and provide a myriad of bank services,” said Rev. John Anderson, President of the Bay Area Rescue Mission, a non-profit that helps the homeless and impoverished in Richmond. Anderson said that the Mechanics Bank was involved helping the non-profit since it began 45 years ago. Decisions on how to manage the bank are still controlled by the Downer family. Early this month, E.M. Downer’s great-granddaughter, Dianne Daiss Felton, began serving as chairman of the board. Michael Downer, a great-grandson, serves as vice chairman. The bank prides itself on personable service, particularly its non-automated 800 number. “I love it. When you call, you get an actual person that helps you,” said customer Joshua Gutierrez. Customer Tina Scott, who works near the bank’s Point Richmond office, said that when the line is too long, the manager will take her deposit and personally bring the receipt to her work. “All the employees are very nice,” she said. The bank’s involvement with non-profits and record of reciprocity with the community hasn’t gone unnoticed. Last December, the Move Your Money campaign started encouraging people to transfer their funds from big banks to credit unions or community banks. Their site provides a link to a zip code look-up service to help consumers find “risk free” community banks. The Mechanics Bank pops on the list of recommended institutions. Butler says that Richmond’s oldest bank is still growing; this year the number of people opening new accounts at the Mechanics Bank has doubled. “I’m very proud of what the Bank does for the community, the customers’ trust and the financial stability offered,” Butler said. May 28, 2010 Richmond Confidential

When Rebecca Newburn was volunteering at the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library in Berkeley, an organization that makes free seeds available to the public, she thought to herself, “I would like this for my community.” Newburn has lived in Richmond for eight years, and her work as a science and math teacher in Marin County hasn’t taken her away from being a long-time gardener. “I love the idea of checking out seeds,” she said. Together with other community organizations and volunteers, Newburn helped found the Richmond Grows Seed Lending Library, which opened just two months ago and is located at the main public library. Together with Catalin Kaser, she serves as the library’s coordinator. At the seed library, people can “check out” healthy seeds, use them to plant herbs, vegetables and flowers, and return new seeds from the resulting plants at the end of the season. The seed check-out process is self-service and it’s explained on the Richmond Grows website. Interested people can sign up for 45-minute orientations offered at the library several times a month and/or watch a 10 minute video at their websitethat clearly explains the process. This seed library is another effort that Richmond residents are making to grow food locally and build community, and Richmond’s is the first one in the nation to operate at a more traditional public library. “We put it in a public space because we wanted the entire public to have access,” Newburn said. The seed library is a collaborative project of the Richmond Public Library and the Richmond Rivets, a non-profit that promotes the local production of food, energy and goods. Newburn said that approximately thirty people had volunteered to make the library possible. “It’s a community effort,” she said. Meant to be a model for other communities, the Richmond Grows Seed Library have all its informational materials available for free to be downloaded from their website so other communities can start their own libraries of this kind. Even though the coordinators are still in the process of getting the library up and running, they’ve had media coverage already and the East Bay Express gave them the 2010 Best of the Bay Award for the best seed-lending library. Other community efforts to support more sustainable food and gardening are also growing in Richmond. Urban Tilth is a non-profit that supports urban agriculture in West Contra Costa County. It is the fiscal sponsor of Richmond’s seed library, and also has a number of other projects including the coordination of ten small farms and providing technical assistance to seven community and school gardens across Richmond and San Pablo. One of these gardens is around the corner from Deirdre Candelaria’s Richmond home, right up against I-80 at the intersection of Humboldt and Solano Avenue. Formerly a dirt lot that attracted garbage, Candelaria thought that it could be a great place for a community garden. Other neighbors were interested, too. Urban Tilth helped organize and plan the project and made donations of soil and plants. About 20 households participated in the making of what now is the Humboldt Edible Forest, a garden that has been growing for two years. Tomatoes, chamomile, cabbage, mint and blackberries are some of the things planted at the garden. People can take what they need and in exchange there is an unspoken agreement that they take care of the garden by planting, watering, cleaning or participating in workdays. “We take and take and take from the Earth and we haven’t learned how to give back,” Candelaria said, “If someone enjoys a fruit we ask that they find an act of service, for example picking up trash or watering, that feels like a good exchange.” Candelaria said that the experience of sharing a community garden has been sweet. “There is this one mother who would come out with her son—they planted this special pumpkin that they came and water every day,” she said. Candelaria recently found out about the Richmond seed library on the web and is looking forward to participating. “It’s great that people have access to the seeds for free,” she said. As with the Humboldt Edible Forest, the concept of “giving back” is also very important at the seed library, when people take seeds they are expected to return the seeds. The seed library wants to create four videos to educate people on how to save seeds from their new plants so they can return them at the end of the season. They are starting a “kickstarter fundraising” campaign to get the videos done. According to Newburn, seed saving had been a tradition in the past and hopes that Richmond residents can now revive it. “The seeds have value as food, but also they are connected to our family and our community,” she said. July 20, 2010 Richmond Confidential