On Tuesday, the Antioch City Council provided direction to staff on several changes to how meeting agendas are set. They also learned they could not change how a mayor is selected until 2032.
The meeting was called after Antioch Councilmembers Mike Barbanica and Tamisha Torres-Walker wanted to discuss and revamp how city council agendas are set. The move came during last meetings future agenda items after Barbanica explained he called for the tobacco policy to come back at the next meeting, it did not. Now that policy has to start all over.
Meeting Highlights:
Mayor Lamar Thorpe Absent
Mayor Lamar Thorpe was not present for Tuesdays meeting as he is in Mexico on a vacation, but when the meeting was requested by Barbanica and Torres-Walker, he failed to share with the council he would be absent. Thorpe supporters, however, filled the council chambers and heckled the rest of the council throughout the night as they discussed both agenda items.
Council Gets More Say in Agenda Setting:
- Items requested by councilmembers must come back within 90-days
- Meetings cannot go past 11:00 pm, unless council votes that night
- Limits the amount of items on an agenda to 7 items
- At least 3 items requested by councilmembers must be on an agenda
- Items not heard during a meeting, would move to the top of the agenda at the next meeting
Elected Mayor vs. Rotating Mayor
Under this item and proposal, council would seek to transition from a mayor and four councilmembers to five council districts and a rotational mayor–like most cities in Contra Costa County. To do this, it would require a vote of the public. However, it was shared that two past attempts in 1994 and 2012 failed badly when taken to the voters.
Mal Richardson of Best Best & Kreiger provided legal advice and overview for what the council was requested and basically shared the change could only occur when redistricting is occurring—every 10-years. That would allow for the drawing of five council districts.
According to Richardson, this changed in 2019 when AB 849 became law which is referred to as the FAIR MAPS (Fair And Inclusive Redistricting for Municipalities And Political Subdivisions).
Council Recap
Antioch Councilmember Mike Barbanica explained that “it may shock people” he and councilmember Tamisha Torres-Walker have had regular contact even though they often don’t agree on items.
He continued stating the meeting was called after frustrations over the past 2 years of items not coming back to the agenda.
“We talked about what we can do to work on that together. We bounced ideas off each other for a couple of hours and this has nothing to do with one person, this has to do with the governance of this community,” stated Barbanica. “Being in a district, can I ever get items on an agenda? Can she get items on an agenda? Can anyone get items on an agenda? This is not about one individual person, this is for future councils to come so we are not in a position of councilmembers feeling as though they cannot get an item on an agenda.”
He further explained on how they could get tonight’s items on an agenda and came to the conclusion of “good luck” and the only way to do that is by a special meeting of a majority vote.
“We agreed, yes we will call for a special meeting and if there is support amongst the council then we will proceed with a special meeting,” said Barbanica. “In that meeting, we brainstormed and came up with problems that we have had over the past 2.5 years. Some of those items were members of this community, there is a staffing issue here at the city. No doubt. But we are seeing is extensive agendas.”
Barbanica says these agendas are so packed that its essentially “good luck” on getting an item on an agenda because of all the closed sessions, study sessions and late-night meetings.
He said they also talked about the idea of when a councilmember publicly requests an item, it would have to come back within 90-days instead of 6-months.
“We are not looking to take away the entire thing from the mayors office, we are looking for a way to be assured that everybody’s items make it to an agenda within a time frame and 3 items are reserved for councilmembers that have made requested come back,” stated Barbanica. “If we run out of time, that item then becomes item 1 in the next meeting.”
Barbanica provided an overview of what they discussed from:
- 90-day time limit to come forward.
- Placing items first on the next agenda if they run out of time
- Limiting the amount of items on an agenda
- Reserving three spaces on an agenda for councilmembers
- Limit number of public hearing and presentations on a single agenda
“I want to be clear, nobody is looking to take total authority away from the mayors office,” stated Barbanica. “We are looking to create an agenda moving forward that assures councilmembers the ability to get items on the agenda in a timely fashion.”
Councilmember Lori Ogorchock shared in 2014 when she was first elected, they couldn’t get items on an agenda so they set up a 6-month policy that the council was in agreement with under Mayor Wade Harper.
She explained items came up from the public which were not placed on agenda but recently found out they have no policy where the mayor sets the agenda, but rather its been the city manager and mayor who set an agenda, but she said that was not even happening.
“The mayor and city manager would come together and they would set the agenda. But that is not happening either,” said Ogorchock. “When this came about, its been very frustrating as a District 3 representative if I can’t get anything that my constituents or residents want in that area on an agenda, I am not doing them any service. So, its fair for all councilmembers to get something on the agenda.”
Councilwoman Monica Wilson attempted to apologize for all the “confusion” on the agenda because there was not any information.
“I want to apologize for all the confusion of this non-emergency emergency meeting. I get that this is something we need to talk about and I agree this process needs to be very transparent,” stated Wilson who stated staff was overworked. “I am not a fan of an agenda that doesn’t have a staff report attached to it so the public knows exactly what we are talking about. So when we have these types of meetings, if we don’t have the report attached to it, whoever called it, needs to explain it.”
Wilson called for more transparency yet again apologizing for the non-emergency emergency meeting and believed there should more information and people should have got more information versus a “vague agenda”.
“So the question isn’t why we are having this discussion, the question is why haven’t this discussion happened a long time ago,” said Torres-Waker.
Mayor Pro Tem Tamisha Torres-Walker shared her reasons for supporting the meeting and how she asked former city manager Ron Bernal why it takes so long to get items on an agenda and why 20-30 items have not been brought back—then up to 6-months for when they are brought back only to be brought back simply as a discussion then decide if we want to move forward.
“When we are talking about the absence of unity and the absence of diversity of voice, that is a clear absence of voice and diversity when the person you elected to council could literally in their term not get anything done because it could take up to 6-months or more for items to come back,” explained Torres-Walker. “I know when I came onto council, there were some items more than a year old and the council people who asked for them were no longer on the council by the time they came back.”
She also shot back at some of the public comments.
“When we are talking about a right wing or left wing agenda, I am not a bird so I don’t know what it means to have a right wring or left wing. When we talk about the system, the system of democracy hasn’t worked in forever and the system we have had in this city since growth, since its become diversified, this government has not grown to meet the needs of this new community. With the growth and with the diversity if we are being honest.”
She further stated if the system was working, it was working to prevent peoples voices from being heard while stating it was not about who was in the mayors seat, but rather about good governance.
She also shot back at public commenters who believed they didn’t have the right to call the meeting.
“A council majority absolutely has the right to do this and we have the authority to do other things,” stated Torres-Walker. “For 2.5 years, we have tried to say okay lets wait. What’s fair? It hasn’t been working so we had to exercise the authority we do have and this is within our authority.”
She continued stating she would not explain what she has had to deal with over the past two-years sitting on the council.
“I didn’t run for office to sell out my values and soul to get an item on the agenda. That is not how this is supposed to work,” stated Torres-Walker.
She also spoke about teamwork.
“When we say team, we use that loosely because to say you have a team means you have a team leader who is willing to have conversations with everybody and be flexible and come to some agreements,” stated Torres-Walker. “When you say the council is divided. There is division among this council. That didn’t just start. Day 1, there has been division.”
She noted she and Mike Barbanica, who don’t agree on many items, have figured out a way to work together and have conversations while urging others to do the same with people they disagree with.
“It’s not about individual people, this is about good government, about diversity of voice and making sure things come back in a timely manner so everybody who was elected can get their constituents voices here,” said Torres-Walker.
She continued by highlighting she is not looking to climb a political ladder so she was not afraid and then shared her thoughts:
- Reasonable for items to come back to an agenda in a shorter time
- Reasonable to hold 3 slots on an agenda for what council has requested so they are not just sitting on a shelf and collecting dust.
- Called it reasonable for agendas not to be so packed
She also tackled public comments.
“When you have 10-20 things on an agenda and we got to get through all of them in one night, ya, you are going to get 1-minute to speak, that is just the reality” said Torres- Walker. “
“So the question isn’t why we are having this discussion, the question is why haven’t this discussion happened a long time ago,” said Torres-Waker.
She continued by admitting she benefited from the process the agenda was created, but after discussions with Barbanica, she had to step back and say my peers on the council should also be able to move some things to the agenda whether they have a vote for it or not.
City Attorney Thomas L Smith shared with the council they have a municipal code and it could be codified in a resolution if they want to move forward with several items. They item will be brought back to the council for discussion and they can vote on this new way to set agendas.
Prior to a round robin on items, Councilwoman Ogorchock responded to an earlier comment made by councilwoman Wilson on “vague agendas”
“There have been several times on several meetings, I think last meeting was one, when things come up for discussion and there is never a staff report,” stated Ogorchock who said they didn’t want to put staff into it because they did not know if it was something they wanted to proceed with so it was a discussion item. “I want to make sure people understand we do this on a regular basis and have discussion items.”
Torres-Walker agreed.
“I’ve also seen items come to this agenda with no background, no information behind it for discussion. I’ve also seen that everything is urgent except better government in this city,” said Torres-Walker.
While talking over the audience who kept interrupting, she continued to say this type of discussion was not overshadowing violence, policing, violence prevention in the community, or housing and tenants right, but doing this to have agenda items come back to the agenda.
With a crowd heckling the council, Torres-Walker told everyone to calm down because this item was not going away.
The crowd continued to shout and heckle the council and support mayor Lamar Thorpe.
“If you want to fight for the mayor, that is another meeting,” said Torres-Walker. “We have not violated the Brown Act and we are moving forward.”
The council then did a round table on some of the suggestions made by Barbanica and Torres-Walker.
Council Meetings would go until 11:00 pm Unless Approved to Continue that night: Barbanica, Ogorchock and Torres-Walker agreed with Wilson giving no answer. The goal was to ensure the council would adhere to current policy.
Any item that is not covered on the night of a council meeting will go to the next council meeting as the first item: Barbanica, Ogorchock, Torres-Walker with Wilson giving no answer.
Placing a maximum of 7 items on an agenda: did not move forward, council will stick to 11:00 pm timeframe
At this point, the crowd was loud and heckling the council enough to disrupt the meeting when Torres-walker attempted to calm those in attendance.
“We have already heard the voices of those who disagreed and agreed. We have done that. We are going forward. You can keep disrupt the meeting, but it won’t disrupt the direction we are giving,” said Torres-Walker. “I am trying not to say what I am thinking because it wont look good for your mayor.”
Agendas will have 3 items reserved for the councilmembers: Barbanica, Ogorchock, Torres-Walker and Wilson.
6-Month list will be changed to a 90-day list: Barbanica, Ogorchock, Torres-Walker and Wilson all agreed.
City Manager Forrest Ebbs interjected stated for staff, it’s always weird to bring an item back with no staff report and while he doesn’t guarantee a six-page report, he owes it to the council and public for an executive summary on the issue and applicable laws and possible context.
City Attorney said he could bring back the item by the June 27 and as early as June 13.
The council agreed and provided direction to move forward.
You can watch the meeting by clicking here.
6 comments
Comments are closed.
Add Comment