In the final stretch before the election, the candidates—incumbent Irma Anderson, Councilwoman Gayle McLaughlin, and former Councilman Gary Bell—are positioning themselves as having the character and experience to unite a divisive City Council and oversee the city’s rebirth.

After years of fiscal mismanagement, Richmond was slammed in 2004 with a $35 million deficit. At the time, many criticized the City Council for its bitter in-fighting and for not recognizing the impending financial disaster.

Residents are eager for a political leadership that will present a united front in taking on the city’s challenges—and realizing the city’s considerable potential.

“Richmond is still viable,” said Robert Marsh, 62, expressing the muted hopefulness he shares with other residents. “Things can be done.”

Still, residents like Marsh express frustration with the potholed, dangerous streets. They wish the city had a bookstore and the libraries and community centers operated on regular hours. Most of all, they want to see an end to the violence.

To date, there have been 37 murders in Richmond, compared with that same number for all of last year.

“We are so tired of living in a community where we don’t feel safe leaving our houses at night,” said Miriam Wong, executive director of the non-profit Latina Center. “That’s not a way to live.”

Mayor Anderson, 75, was elected in 2001 after serving two terms as city’s first African American councilwoman. Anderson, who was a public nurse before she entered politics, earned a record number of votes in both council elections.

As mayor, she secured $6 million in grant funds for after-school programs and job training for youth. She cites the Kids First program and her role in steering the city out of the red as her greatest accomplishments.

“I want to bring us into a renaissance as the jewel of the East Bay,” Anderson told voters at a recent forum.

But some think she hasn’t done enough.

“We’ve been labeled the most dangerous city in California for two years under this leadership,” said Rev. Andre Shumake, president of the Richmond Improvement Association.

People have become so concerned about the escalating violence, they’ve set up tent cities throughout the city’s tough Iron Triangle neighborhood.

“The community has brought the issue to the forefront to say: Look, we’ve had enough,” said Shumake, who helped to organize the first tent city.

Anderson says she has taken steps to curb the violence. This summer the mayor introduced a $6.5 million initiative to recruit and hire new police officers and expand prevention programs for youth. Safe Streets Now, which would have set aside 5 percent of the 2007 budget, was voted down by council members who questioned the need for funds to hire additional police officers.

Anderson has committed to collecting the 6,000 signatures necessary to put the measure before voters in a special election.

Her challengers see this ill-fated initiative as evidence of her poor leadership of the council and the city.

“If you can’t get the team together, you can’t score a touchdown,” said her rival Bell, 48, a banker and small business owner.

Bell, who served as chairman of the Finance Committee at the time of the financial meltdown, lost his council seat in 2004. Though he was one of the first to recognize the deficit, some have questioned why—with his background and experience—he didn’t see it sooner.

“He presents himself as a financial czar,” said Jim McMillan. “But if he was so observant of the budget, how did he allow it to go so far?”

To deal with the violence, Bell wants to send a message of zero tolerance through stricter enforcement of gun free zones and loitering, truancy and curfew laws.

“There needs to be a voice that says, if you break the law, we’ll come and get you,” said Bell.

He also favors measures to offer job training to parolees returning to the community and involving them in efforts to fight crime.

McLaughlin, 54, a Green party member elected to the council in 2004, vows to put the needs of citizens before corporate interests and offer a “dramatic departure from politics as usual.”

“The roots of the violence need to be addressed: our hopeless, desperate youth,” said McLaughlin, who wants to form a Youth Corps that will offer young people part-time, year-round city jobs.

McLaughlin founded Solar Richmond, a not-for-profit that endorses the use of solar energy, and says she is committed to creating “good, clean jobs” for the city.

But her relative inexperience and newcomer status concerns some voters in Richmond.

“This is not a time to learn how to be mayor,” said Naomi Williams, a 35-year resident of Richmond who supports the mayor’s re-election.

McLaughlin is a strong backer of Measure T, a controversial city ballot measure to raise $8.5 million in new taxes—about $8 million of which will come from Chevron.

“Mega-industries have exerted too great an influence over city decisions,” she said.

Along with an increase on the taxes paid by Chevron, Measure T will increase the business license tax by 10 percent.

Opponents—including Chevron and the Council of Industries, a Richmond business group—have blanketed the city with signs and leaflets warning voters that Measure T will increase rents for seniors living on fixed incomes.

McLaughlin insists that Measure T will have a minimal impact on landlords and small businesses. The majority of the revenues generated by the tax—94 percent—will be levied on Chevron.

“Richmond can make a few cents on the millions they make,” she said.

Anderson, the only candidate who opposes Measure T, has received campaign support from members of the Council of Industries and Chevron’s Committee for Quality Government.

“Richmond has been sapped by a variety of politicians and megacorps,” said Robert Marsh, a Green party member who plans to vote for Gayle McLaughlin. He described her as “a sign of hope.”

Rev. Shumake agrees that new leadership is needed and backs Gary Bell.

“He is someone with vision who will reach out to the council and citizenry of Richmond,” he said.

For its part, the Contra Costa Times has declined to endorse a candidate. The paper’s Oct. 31 editorial essentially said that no candidate was good enough to lead the troubled city. The editors of the paper were particularly dispirited by the candidates’ plans to solve the city’s spiraling murder rate.

“We can’t imagine a more uninspiring, lackluster group…” read the editorial. “None of these candidates has put forward a single, thoughtful, sensible proposal for dealing with the street-crime epidemic.”

The paper framed the disappointing choices as a call to action, urging citizens to step forward and contribute their ideas and talents to Richmond politics.

“Only then can the “city of pride and purpose” resurrect its pride and its purpose,” the editorial concludes.