“We’re all here for the same reason,” said Louise Stewart. “We want to take us back to where we once were—a safe community, with a lot of fun and a lot of jobs.”

Stewart was among some 300 Richmond residents who packed the pews of the Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church on Thursday night, June 2, for a gathering that was part community meeting and part church meeting. Not surprising. There were half a dozen ministers, and most of the attendees were from their congregations. Stewart, who has lived in Richmond since 1964, was among a large contingent from the BMMBC who came to talk about how to make Richmond proud again.

CCISCO—Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organization, is a coalition of 25 church congregations in the county—had called the meeting to announce Richmond NOW, a concrete plan of action for turning the city around. The coalition works with other Richmond partners, like the Iron Triangle Local Organizing Community, the Safe Return Community Research Team, and Reach Fellowship. It also has enough clout to draw some of the city’s key officials.

Like Police Chief Chris Magnus and four of his top cops, who like the majority of those in the pews were African-American. Council members Nat Bates and Dr. Jeff Ritterman, City Manager Bill Lindsay and DeVone Boggan, head of the Office of Neighborhood Safety, were there, too. Mayor Gayle McLauglin sent her regrets with a proxy, who said she was at a county mayors meeting but supported CCISCO’s plan.

Richmond Now is an eight-point plan for addressing key problems in ways systematic and perhaps hopeful. Some will cost little; others will cost money the city clearly doesn’t have in its coffers, a point that Ritterman made when he addressed the crowd.

But on to the plan.

Safe Spaces addresses the need for community centers, and asks city officials to fund programming at the Nevin Center, a once-chaotic place that received a needed renovation and has become a safer haven for youth.

Mentoring asks the West Contra Costa Unified School District to fund and staff mentoring programs at Kennedy and Richmond high schools.

Ceasefire/Lifelines to Healing is a youth violence prevention program that CCISCO wants the police department and the city to adopt.

City ID Cards would give all Richmond residents a municipal identification card, something particularly needed by immigrants and ex-offenders re-entering the community. The plan asks the City Council to draw up legislation creating a Richmond ID, and on June 7, according to Ritterman, the council will take up the issue.

Linked Learning asks the school board to increase mentors and job internships for students at Kennedy and Richmond high schools.

Adult Education programs for residents need protection from cuts and the plan asks the school board to maintain them.

Predatory Towing of cars for 30 days puts low income residents dependent on their cars for work in financial difficulties; the plan asks Chief Magnus to work with CCISCO on a “humane” policy on towing cars for minor infractions.

Safe Return addresses the need for services for parolees released from prison and returning to Richmond and asks the police and city officials to create a one-stop center with jobs, housing, education, health care and other services for them as a tool for preventing recidivism.

Is it pie-in-the-sky optimism? The meeting was full of enthusiasm and heartfelt testimonies on each of the plan’s action points, but it was also an event staged with careful and disciplined focus, unfolding according to a printed program that amazingly stayed on schedule.

At the end, officials were called up to sign an oversized copy of the Richmond NOW plan before the applauding audience. Whether it becomes a reality (the adult education classes got a reprieve just the other day when the school board reversed plan cuts) will probably depend much on the continued commitment of those 300 attendees. Rev. Dr. Alvin Bernstine, pastor of the Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church, conveyed both the staggering odds and the inspired optimism. After detailing Richmond’s plight as “second most violent city in the state,” and the opportunity to turn things around and create a miracle, he ended by saying, “I don’t know about y’all, but I like being part of a miracle.”

(Disclaimer: The California Endowment is one funder of CCISCO; it also funds the environmental health reporting project of The Bay Citizen, which includes the Quality of Life blog.)