Editorial: 10 Things I Want to See Happen in 2024

Peace out 2023 and hello 2024 as I have created a list of 10 Things I Want to see Happen in 2024.

Sure, I can wish for better driving habits in the county, less potholes, fewer storage units and gas stations popping up, but lets go deeper and start addressing real problems which starts with leadership–its very weak in many places. Too much lip service and not enough actual doing of things that better the overall community.

2023 is a year where failed social experiments were realized and we stop trying to be all things to all people and get back to basics so actual progress can be made from public safety to smart growth while addressing homeless issues and lack of public services– Editorial: 10 Things Contra Costa County Can’t Unsee in 2023. 

Ultimately, as this is an election year, greater transparency across the board should be required and allow for a more educated public on what is really going on versus relying on political rhetoric.

Here is a look of 10 things I would like to see happen.

10. George Fuller Resign from Oakley City Council

I realize Fuller will not resign, but one could hope.  The next best thing to do is for the Oakley City Council to strip Fuller from all committee assignments and censure him after publicly accusing two of his councilmembers of money laundering campaign funds–even after the FPPC said they would not investigate his complaint. Knowing this, he then lied about it on the dais. In 2023, residents have caught onto his antics and called him out for his multiple lies, bizarre rewriting of history, to dealing with his social media trolling.  Oakley appears fed up with his antics both at the dais and online. He must go!

9. Brentwood City Council Needs to Actually Lead

Although they have gotten better in the past few months since Tony Oerleman provided fireworks at a Council Meeting and forced the issue, this is a council that is afraid of its own shadow all because of trolls on social media–sometimes they even show up at the podium for public comment. At some point, the Brentwood City Council needs to start making decisions based on what is best for Brentwood, not what a few “alliances” on social media think should happen. For example, the 5-minute public comment time is ridiculous and is in place for those who simply want to hear themselves speak. This experiment should be reversed and go back to 3-minutes or less. It would also behoove some members of the council to actually trust staff instead of wasting everybody’s time with busy work and meaningless staff reports that 99.9% of the public don’t even care about. The fact these meetings are going 6+ hours highlights a lot of hot air is coming out of peoples mouths. Overall, this is actually a smart council full of diverse opinions, its time they actually make smarter decisions versus worrying about social media commentary to bully them into poor decision making.

8. Anamarie Avila Farias NOT Winning the Assembly District 15 Race

Look, this lady is nuts, political speaking of course. Anamarie Avila Farias is what is wrong with local politics and is also the reason why Districting has occurred at a rate it has in Contra Costa County. It is also the reason why residents have less say and less representation on city council, schools boards, and other districts. If you recall, she is allegedly the one who targeted Martinez with the Malibu-based law firm. While the list is long, but her “boycott the 4^th of July” stunt in 2022 is plenty reason enough for voters to look at candidates Karen Mitchoff, Monica Wilson or Sonia Ledo instead.

7. Time Wasters at Public Meetings Must be Addressed

I have nothing against passionate people who really care about issues… this is not about you and please continue to participate in local meetings. However, every single elected body should address this problem of weaponized public comments in 2024 by mimicking a 10-minute total time set in place by the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors. Basically, each person is limited to 10 total minutes of speaking at each meeting regardless of number of topics–you get 10 minutes and then done.  This would reduce some issues from:

1. Person saying the same thing every single meeting
2. Those who speak on every single agenda item/or multiple times
3. Feel the need to defend a councilperson because they didn’t like another public commentors perspective.

If anyone has paid attention to the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, City of Antioch, City of Brentwood, City of Richmond and even certain school boards, the public comments have become nothing more than timewasting and drawing out of meetings hours longer than they need to be. If you watch the clock, some of these public speakers talk more than the actual elected officials. Its actually reducing overall public participation, not increasing it.

6.  Brentwood Councilmember Jovita Mendoza Grows Up

For someone who belittles staff, undermines local business, mobilizes her supporters both online and at meetings to make it appear there is support for issues she favors is silliness. Then when she is called out for her half-truths, misrepresentation of facts, or is corrected, she accuses people of being mean and claims she is being bullied. Maybe 2024 will be the year Mendoza grows up or Brentwood finally decides they have had enough of her immature antics. Even more childish, allowing her “supporters” do her “dirty work” by trolling those who disagree with her. She is up for election this fall and Brentwood residents should show her the door should she seek re-election.

5. East Contra Costa Transportation Projects

Will 2024 be the year traffic projects finally offer some relief to drivers? Some yes, but not all. Projects that need to begin immediately include:

• American Avenue (Brentwood) – Nothing in the pipe but one can hope the loop by Heritage High School and Adams Middle School would connect American Avenue with Balfour begins. Wishful thinking at this point. Only way this gets built is with development and we all know the lies that will be told to sway the public opinion.
• Bailey Road – pothole central between Concord and Bay Point. Those need to be addressed.
• E Cypress Road (Oakley) – Assemblywoman Lori Wilson announced $2 million in funding was coming for the E Cypress road widening at Jersey Island to Bethel Island Road. Oakley Also stated last January the project would begin in late 2023 so lets hope there is real movement in 2024 to ensure greater road safety and access.
• Viera Ave/Oakley Rd to eBART – essentially, this would create an access point for Oakley residents to get to eBART without having to hit Highway 4 and would reduce traffic on Hillcrest. Rumblings of the hold up being a $10-14 million cost just to take the road over the railroad tracks. Funding is why this project may never happen.

Antioch is currently searching for a new city manager and police chief

4. Antioch Hires a Qualified City Manager & Police Chief

I can’t blame anyone for not wanting to take either job and work under these jokers on the city council, but consider the last time Antioch has had a qualified city manager was in December of 2021 when Ron Bernal retired. Since then, Antioch has cycled through 4 city managers while letting their assistant city manager get away and leave for another city. Its no wonder little is being done. I don’t see anyone qualified wanting to come to Antioch until after the 2024 election but its time this council begin actually recruiting for the positions.

From there, you clean house and begin to undo much of the damage done under this majority city council while a rebuild of the police department begins. If Antioch can find a qualified police chief, it could help speed up the process.

Unfortunately, the council seems dead set on keeping the community divided with this whole “old Antioch” vs. “new Antioch” when they should be trying to unite ALL OF ANTIOCH–or, accuse people of being racist for simply disagreeing with them.

A qualified city manager can help set a new tone and hopefully work with a city council to shape a direction that can create buy-in from all sides versus the political grandstanding and catering to just a few individuals to better political careers. It would also help if the city had leadership that believed in transparency of what was actually happening in Antioch from public safety, its businesses and no longer put up with the non-sense around town from sideshows to homeless encampments. Too much lip service and not enough actual actions.

3. Greater Police Transparency in Concord, Pittsburg & Walnut Creek

It is rather stunning with how much crime is occurring in the City of Concord, City of Pittsburg and City of Walnut Creek that little information is being released.

• Concord – yes, they provide a weekly burglary report. But its essentially useless. You have other crime that residents should be aware of in terms of assaults, robbery, shootings, stolen vehicles and other crimes. Residents deserve better weekly reporting and overall updates on major incidents versus PR campaigns on social media. At a time when there is a lawsuit by four female officers, I would think the goal of 2024 for Concord Police Chief Mark Bustillos would be transparency. On a positive, when Bustillos gave his overall crime presentation for 2022, it was one of the best in the county. So lets do more of that, just year round.
• Pittsburg – Highly disappointing that with the amount of crime going on in this city few people know what is actually going on—even after Target decided to close due to crime. That should have been a wake up call for Pittsburg to be more transparent. On the other hand, you have the officers in the street making nice arrests that no one will ever know about. Chief Steve Albanese needs to step up and actually work with his command staff to share what is going on in the city and the city council should stop being so passive about crime.
• Walnut Creek – can’t knock them too hard, they are moving in the right direction with issuing more news releases and information on incidents (probably due to News 24-680 coverage), but they really need to work on formulating their call logs so its more useful to the public. They also need to be more honest and acknowledge crime that is occurring. A few tweaks and these guys will be fine.

2. Lamar Thorpe Voted Out of Office in November

The laundry list of reasons is long for why Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe should be voted out in November. From sexual harassment settlement to his DUI, his constant lying and half truths to being a moral killer is obvious reasons. But its larger than that, he has failed to unite a community, only further divide it with his public statements, anti-public safety messaging and essentially calling everyone who disagrees with him a racist. Note to Thorpe, leaders don’t deflect and blame everyone else for ones mistakes or inability to get things done.  Leaders also do not challenge others to a street fight from the dais.

Its also came to light multiple internal candidates turned down the chance to become Antioch Police Chief while outside candidates have also turned down the invitation. You also have at least 2 recruitment firms publicly admit to turning down working with the city–its rumored as many as 4 turned the city down and more were not even responsive. There is a reason why Antioch has around 90 vacant position which is leading to many items falling through the cracks and the reasons are because people do not want to work for a city which Thorpe sits as mayor. He doesn’t have the right temperament, is vindictive, retaliatory and is a hypocrite. Even councilmember Tamisha Torres-Walker appears to be distancing herself from his antics given his treatment of her by not bringing back agenda items when he should because she is not voting with him on certain issues.

For serious mayoral candidates, get together in a room and figure it out so the field is cleared so the votes are not diluted to multiple candidates.  Sadly, its going to take Antioch two or three election cycles to undo the mess caused under Thorpe’s leadership and rebuild staffing, community building, and right the ship that is sunk.

Regardless of his personality, his record speaks for itself and Antioch is much worse than it was before he became mayor. The dictatorship must end in 2024.

1. Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office Holds Criminals Accountable

It should never get to a point in any county where families of crime victims have to get together and begin talking about a recall, in this case, a recall attempt for District Attorney Diana Becton. But we are at that point. More crime victims should be speaking out and businesses should share how much criminals have cost them in product loss, repairs or increased insurance.

In 2024, I’d like to see police departments educate the community on what they are actually dealing with – you know, arresting the same person over and over and over and no consequences, such as Jesse Leonardo Otero who has been busted 90 times for shoplifting. Or highly visible crime cases sent to the DA where they simply chooses not to prosecute–the public would be shocked.  It would be nice if Sheriff David Livingston would wake up from his nap and educate the public on just how much impact the DA’s office is having on crime and duplication of efforts for law enforcement. Talk about an absentee sheriff asleep at the wheel. One would think he would be all over that “secret plan not to prosecute” or little to no care in the world over sideshows.

I get that some of the issues are caused by state law, but Contra Costa County residents are growing tired of the cater to the criminal mentality and you see it by people leaving the county for greener pastures. We should not be tolerating crime or allow it to become the new normal, we should be holding people accountable for their actions—not blaming the “system” or “cops” for bad behavior.

Enough with the excuses and bring back some damn accountability to people behaving badly.

How About You?

I have my 10 things. How about you? What would you like to see happen in 2024?

Mike Burkholder
Publisher of ContraCosta.news
[email protected]