Editorial: Antioch Residents Must Taper Expectations

This week, the City of Antioch will get a much needed changing of the guard with newly elected Mayor Ron Bernal and councilmembers Donald Freitas and Louie Rocha who have been handed a giant dumpster fire.

With wide-margin election victories, Bernal, Freitas and Rocha have been given a mandate by voters to change the direction of the city and undo a lot of the foolishness under the leadership of current Mayor Lamar Herndandez-Thorpe and councilmemebers Tamisha Torres-Walker and Monica Wilson.

The line “with great power comes great responsibility” comes to mind as its not a matter of “if” the new Antioch City Council makes changes, it is a matter of “how fast” and “how much” are they willing to move the needle. After all, the “voters have spoken” and overwhelmingly want change. Either way, its not going to be an overnight success story.

The optimist in me says Bernal, Freitas and Rocha will stop the nonsense immediately and become the “undo council” many desire. Perhaps even the “fix it” council to get things back on track.  However, the pessimist in me says they will take their time and really look under the hood before taking action–a more pragmatic approach because without truly knowing the budget, it would be irresponsible to make sweeping changes without worrying about unintended consequences from undoing the “web of foolishness” of Hernandez-Thorpe and company.

For example, when a vehicle does not start, you simply do not just change the battery, you really have to see what is going on under the hood. Just as I am sure new city manager Bessie Scott took a look and probably wishes she stayed in Seattle. I think the council takes the pragmatic approach because they need to be strategic about it.

Another issue I see, I really believe someone from Antioch will face some sort of charges or end up in jail at some point. Whether this is an elected official or staff member, at some point it will become public given the shenanigans at city hall–the Grand Jury Report was the tip of the iceberg. From what I am hearing, inside city hall, it is “very bad” and its not yet come to light publicly.

For that reason alone, that is why a first priority must be a forensic audit to uncover just what has been going on within the city as well as the mayors office the past four years. Where has the money gone and to whom? Is the city in true good financial standing or have the books been cooked? The list of questions go on.

The council is going to have to sit down and ask themselves three very simple questions after a forensic audit:

1. What exactly are the priority items given the budget?
2. Do they tweak or undo many policies and changes within the city?
3. Do they focus on “must haves” and get back to basics or continue down the path of “wants”?

For as much as there is to do, here is a a rundown of what I’d like to see occur:

Darrell Olson, Gary Tia of BACS discuss Opportunity Village

Develop Trust and Community Engagement

Getting elected was the easy part. The hard part now making decisions that impact the community with many moving parts.  To start, the council must be transparent and trust developed from all parties, not just pandering to certain segments or organizations. This will take time, but transparency is key to developing trust which then can turn into success.

Antioch must get away from “cancel culture” and “shout down” when folks disagree with one another and find ways to come together–we have more in common than not, just no one is talking.

Bernal and company need to create an atmosphere where everyone is welcome in the council chambers, public meetings and community events. The community is divided at the moment, but hopefully that can be repaired.

Equally important is building trust through civic participation and that includes re-evaluating all committees and appointments made by Hernandez-Thorpe. Do the committees or ad-hocs stay or do they go? Some that need to be re-evaluated include:

• Antioch Police Oversight Commission – needs an overhaul or decommissioned
• Antioch Economic Development Commission
• Antioch Planning Commission
• Antioch Sales Tax Oversight

Through this, hopefully the council can bridge the gap and reduce division because they are not going to get anywhere without buy-in from members of the community, service organizations or the business community.

City Attorney Must Go

Day 1, fire the city attorney! End of story!

What Thomas Lloyd Smith has allowed to occur for the past four years is nothing short of an embarrassment. In my opinion, the guy is either way in over his head, or blatantly ignored his role and responsibilities. Either way, he failed to not only protect the city council from themselves, but also failed to protect the city as a whole. If he wants to be an advocate, go be an advocate, but one should not be doing that as a city attorney.

The caveat here, if Smith did attempt to protect the council from themselves and protect the city, with the council ignoring his direction, that is another story and that should also be made public with time. I’d also issue a formal apology if that was the case, but I do not believe it to be.

Keep or Fire the City Manager

Do Bernal and company give Bessie Marie Scott a chance to see what she is capable of or simply cut ties and move onto someone they want to work with? That is a question I hear a lot of from Antioch residents because they are concerned over the money to be paid out. A decision will have to be made one way or the other so that question goes away.

Tough call given the payout for termination, but it goes back to the fact she should never have been hired in the first place through a sham hiring process while her experience and her social media was never challenged. I believe with a newly elected city council, a better candidate pool would present itself.  This all could have been spared if the sitting council had allowed the new council a chance to pick who they wanted to work with.

Fortunately for Scott, I am not on the council and believe they will give her a chance to see what she can and cannot do and if she can hit goals. For the sake of Antioch, I hope she excels in the position and things begin to improve.

Public Safety Number One Priority

A topic that never seems to go away is public safety in the City of Antioch.

Rather than seek solutions, the previous majority city council placed blame and made excuses. The council also pandered to activists and phony rhetoric for political favor. Enough! Hire a permanent Antioch Police Chief immediately. Hit the reset button and begin to realistically rebuild the department. Be honest with the public as it’s a decade long process given the current atmosphere of policing.

Also, enough of this 115 officer count, the goalpost needs to move to 140 officers. It’s time to get proactive as a city instead of always being reactive to crime. Invest in the amount of officers needed and be done with it. A plan should be created to get to 140 officers over the next several years so crime hopefully begins to drop.

From a morality stand point, the bigger question is why is Antioch even tolerating bad behavior? It is as if people have given up when they should be speaking out.  Why has it become acceptable for young children in the Sycamore Corridor to hear and witness gunshots far too often? Why are they tolerating broken windows all across town?  Why are they tolerating people pooping on sidewalks or in front of business? At some point, is anyone going to become a leader and stand up to this? Will someone on the city council create a call to action that is actual action versus fake lip service–such as Sycamore Square?

Is it too much for elected officials to stand up to the malcontents that keep attacking the Antioch Police Department? It’s time to push back against the hateful rhetoric and stop letting the activist run the show and instead deal in realities of today. If police do not feel support, they will continue to apply elsewhere, or even worse, lateral out.

Finally, the elephant in the room remains the Antioch Police text messaging scandal. Depending on the outcome of arbitration and discipline hearing that do not have decisions yet, it appears the new council is going to have to be faced with making decisions on future discipline issues and arbitration with officers who have yet to have an outcome. If these officers get their jobs back in arbitration, the city could be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in wrongful terminations — or worse, civil lawsuits. And lets not forget, the District Attorneys Office could also be on the hook for this giant screw job in the potential errors within the investigation. More on this should be coming by mid-2025.

Reclaim Measure W Monies / Cannabis Tax

The council must audit spending and rollback all wasteful spending. It would behoove the council once a forensic audit is completed to move Measure W monies to where they were intended and get back to public safety, and even some youth and senior services. As for the cannabis monies, allocate that appropriately.  Antioch residents should get better transparency of how these monies are being spent through improved reporting mechanisms.

Finally, for all the talk about youth programs, wouldn’t it be nice if the council stopped talking about it and instead brought back incentives for Little League, Track and Field, cost-effective recreation leagues and programs? Use the money people are already sending city hall and use it for better quality of life for youths.

Antioch Economic Development

If anyone does a serious audit around town, one will see most of the shopping centers are tired, run down and in need of serious TLC. The city council has its hand full with this and must work on an incentive program to spur redevelopment. Outside of Slatten Ranch, all strip malls in Antioch are dead!

It would behoove the city to fully develop its economic development department and work with a commission that will do real work–while also finding ways to better promote the city (selfishly, also work with local media publications). Economic development has been dead for years in Antioch, its time to come back with a vengeance and begin creating a path forward to encourage progress. Also, it would not hurt to go all in on code enforcement to finally get the job done that will ultimately help businesses and neighborhoods.

Other Tidbits

In the simplest of forms, here is a short list of items that also must be on the radar within the next 100-days for the council to at least discuss:

• Staffing Levels – very important they close the gap on the 20% vacancy rate of city positions and get it closer to 5%. Without proper staffing, not a lot will be accomplished
• Council benefits – Terminate council $100k slush fund and council assistants
• Public Safety and Community Resources – do away with this department completely.
• Crisis Response – Its time to finally partner with Contra Costa County and ensure real data is being provided to the residents of Antioch.
• Just Cause Eviction/Rent Control – Look at these policies and ensure any unintended consequences are addressed.
• Homeless Hotel – terminate this immediately and use the money for greater impact by partnering with the county or other developments. While well intended, its been poorly executed and its time to try something new. If they are set on continuing working with homeless, then they must do so in partnerships and with program accountability.
• Program Accountability – When the city hands out money, a report out on the overall success of a program should be required going forward as a requirement of acceptance. This would better promote transparency of what city funds are achieving and successes.
• Capital Improvements – Finding ways to pay for much needed infrastructure.
• Downtown Revitalization – truly come up with a plan to spark redevelopment
• Antioch Chamber of Commerce – its time to rebuild the relationship and partner on a variety of programs.
• Community Events – more inclusive to everyone, not just certain groups and organizations
• Traffic Safety – a lot of talk the past few years on W 10th, Sycamore, James Donlon, Lone Tree and other areas. Its time to focus on traffic safety once and for all.  This includes sideshows and dirt bikes on roadways.
• Keys to the City – policy requiring 4/5 council approval to award a key to the city.
• Antioch Water Park – decide on what the future of this will be as its becoming a money pit.
• Beede Lumber Yard – is there ever going to be movement on this property?
• AMTAK Station – this item should only return once there is a legitimate pathway forward and stop wasting staff time and misleading the community

The list could go on, but you all get the point that there is a lot of work to do and a lot of investigation into how the city has been ran–especially the budget. Changes will take time and some of these items will take years. I mean it when I say the list could go on because this council compounded Antioch’s problems.

I urge residents to understand change will take time and few things will bring immediate relief, but I am confident true change will begin Tuesday night.  Equality important is the community must understand five members of a city council cannot do it all, members of the community need to step up and participate in the process.

For the sake of Antioch and all of Contra Costa County, lets hope Tuesday is the start to the long journey to a thriving community once again.

Mike Burkholder
Publisher of  ContraCosta.news
[email protected]