Antioch Mayor Pleads for “Help” to do his Job While Council Rejects Salary Increase

On Friday night, during a special meeting of the Antioch City Council, Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe pleaded with his council to approve an ordinance that would allow the creation of a part-time administrative assistant position for him.

“I need help,” Thorpe stated.

The council didn’t give in to the mayors request and instead opted to bring the item back for more discussion and tweak it to become intern positions vs. part-time secretaries.  The mayor also stated he believe the council should get a raise, the rest of the council disagreed with bringing the item back.

The meeting was held Friday after the City Council on Tuesday failed to have a quorum which meant the meeting could not continue because Mayor Lamar Thorpe, Mayor Pro Tem Tamisha Torres-Walker and councilwoman Monica Wilson did not show up.

This then prompted a social media war between the Mayor and City Clerk Ellie Householder after Thorpe deleted her social media comment on his page informing him the meeting was not cancelled, but rather it was called to order, roll call was taken and the meeting could not continue. Thorpe then deleted the comment and banned her from his social media page.

Council Punts Part-Time Secretary Positions Disucssion

For the third time, the item to approve part-time secretary positions for the city council members returns to the agenda. The positions will provide administrative support to the city councilmembers. This includes clerical support and providing information to the public and city staff. They will also assist in planning, coordination and preparation and delivery of city council events.

The fiscal impact will range for allocating one-part time secretary is $15,000 to $21,667, for two part-time secretaries is $30,000 to $43,334 and for three part-time secretaries is $45,000 to $65,000.

• Resolution A – for part-time secretary for District 2 and 3 Council Members
• Resolution B – For part-time secretary for District 1 and 4 Council Members
• Resolution C – part-time secretary for the Mayor.

In public comments, Antioch resident Leslie May supported the idea of part-time secretaries if a councilmember works a job elsewhere, has young children, that they should get help. If councilmembers didn’t want it, they didn’t have to take it.

Melissa Case argued that they have many open positions in the city and why not fill other city staff positions first. She also said only three of the councilmembers answer her questions.

“Will my district councilmember, when she gets an assistant, will she answer my emails because  she doesn’t now,” said Case.

Edgar Villanueva urged the council to consider creating these as internships versus part-time positions.

Johnny Walker spoke via Zoom.

“You’re asking for a female assistant Lamar. Is it okay to speak about what happened last year when you had a female assistant, “said Walker who began to read the transcript of the sexual harassment report released by Contra Costa County.

Thorpe immediately cut off his public comment.

Mayor Pro Tem Torres-Walker explained she came from a city where council people have offices and they share an assistant and didn’t have to meet elsewhere.

“This was my idea, this government has not caught up to the growth of this city. There needs to be something done. Councilmembers often need support to return those phone calls and those emails and attend those important county and statewide meetings to be able to draw down resources to be able to govern effectively,” explained Torres-Walker. “Is it assistants or is it secretaires, I don’t know what it is but some support is needed.”

She continued by stating after meeting with members of the community, came to the conclusion this was not the right direction to go and that internships would be the correct path forward.

“The right direction would be internships,” stated Torres-Walker who said young people and young adults would have an opportunity to become public policy interns and learn to work in local government. “Expanding that opportunity is important.”

She would not be in support as proposed.

“I’m not prepared to support this tonight or in the future. But I would support is if we can bring back the possibility to actually be an internships and any cost associated to it to be allocated to a public policy internship program for youth and young adults in the city of Antioch,” said Torres-Walker.

Thorpe attempted to sway public opinion by noting the part-time secretary salaries range from $15,000 to $21,667 which are internship numbers and the title of part-time secretary was semantics and they could do what they want with.

He continued by stating the frustrating part with interns is they leave or once they are trained and begin to help, they move on.

“I am all for this,” said Thorpe. “You individual or whatever district representative can shape it however you want in terms of how you approach it. I am asking, as the mayor, I do need a ton of support. It helps.”

Antioch City Attorney Thomas Smith explained there was a difference between the individual rights of a secretary vs. intern.

“I don’t have a problem with it being 12- to 24 months. I don’t have a problem with it being a different young person every year, its important to develop those skills,” Torres-Walker. “My thing is lets not do this tonight and lets revisit this with a discussion of the other opportunities.”

Thorpe again stated the council wanted to do that for District 1 and 4, but he wanted an assistant for the mayor.

“I don’t want an intern because I’ve done that and I know what is going to happen,” said Thorpe. “I’m asking for a little more long-term support because there is just different responsibilities that we all have. Our level of responsibility is how engaged we want to be as councilmembers… I am asking or this.”

Councilmember Monica Wilson applauded Torres-Walker on the intern idea saying she has had interns in the past assist her on environmental issues, but said if they do go with the intern idea, they need some type of stipend. She was in favor of a conversation about the idea

Thorpe then continued to request the council approve a secretary for the mayor.

“I am asking for you guys to support that because I need help,” said Thorpe.

Neither Torres-Walker, Wilson or Lori Ogorchock supported the mayor’s request.

“I am saying I am not prepared to support any of them tonight and would like a discussion to come back then maybe parcel out and that way it looks appropriate,” said Torres-Walker.

The item will return at a future meeting.

Mayor Thorpe after Tamisha Torres-Walker says she would not support a raise.

City Council Raises Not Approved

If approved, the city council would bring back a discussion that would increase their monthly stipend from $1,600.04 to $1,852.25– a $252.21 per month increase. It would take place after the next election per the staff report.

Wilson stated she understood why they were discussing the item, but it was an item for the State Legislator to take up.

“A lot of this needs to be fixed on the state level, but I understand why we need to discuss it,” said Wilson.

Torres-Walker was not in support of a pay raise.

“I didn’t agree with the last raise the council gave itself before I was elected. I didn’t agree with the raise the Board of Supervisors gave themselves during the global pandemic when all of our families were struggling so we can have this conversation but I would like the public to know not now or sometime in the future will I ever support an increase unless its something that absolutely has to happen regardless of whether we vote on it or not as a council.

Thorpe reiterated this discussion came up because of their ordinance that requires them annually to discuss.

“I am for increasing salaries because it’s not a volunteer opportunity. This is work we do on behalf of the public; this is very important work. We’ve had our discussion, we met our annual obligation to have the discussion, is everyone clear?” said Thorpe.

Mike Barbanica Absent From Meeting

On January 11, councilmember Mike Barbanica said he would be absent from the meeting.

“The city reached out to me today to see if I would come to a special meeting to replace last night’s “no quorum” meeting. I said, absolutely not. I was there last night ready to proceed and I am not going to play the special meeting game. There are times for special meetings, but this isn’t one of them”

On January 13, Barbanica released a 6:31 minute YouTube video explaining his decision not to show up.

Editor’s Note:

Thorpe interrupted several Antioch residents as they spoke on agenda items which he deemed they were off topic (they were note) as apparently residents are now not allowed to use “examples” to make a point when making a public comment.

• Council Asistants: Public spears could not bring up Thorpe’s past experience with assistants at the Los Medanos Health Care District.
• Council Raises: Public Speakers could not talk about the mayors past performance, bad decisions around a DUI in attempting to avoid the “perp walk”.
• Public Works Reorganization: Speakers could not talk about former public works director/city engineer John Samuelson and the work he was doing and when James Donlon or W. 10^th Street traffic safety.
• Thorpe also cut off councilmember Lori Ogorchock several times.