Antioch Mayor Ron Bernal Addresses Community

On Tuesday, Antioch Mayor Ron Bernal took an opportunity during Mayors Comments to address the entire community.  The comments were prepared remarks.

Here are Bernal’s remarks:

“I understand the position of mayor in the city of Antioch comes with huge expectations in the times we find ourselves in. Many of you are expecting me to make our community safer, reduce crime and gun violence, and make your neighborhoods and city look better. You want the downtown redeveloped. You want a solutions for the homelessness all in the first week of office and I get it. That is what people want, they want change quickly.

Some want me to solve the issues of inequalities and residents that are underserved and disenfranchised. A few of you want me to say or do the wrong thing to confirm I was the wrong person to lead our city and continually be critical of my leadership. I understand all of these viewpoints and I want to clarify a few things.

First, I am a mayor leading a five-person city council that decides our future together.

Second, I want a community and businesses that participates in the process of shaping and achieving our future.

Third, spoiler alert. I am not going to make everybody happy with my priorities and decisions. That is the nature of being a new mayor for our city and I accept everything that comes with it.

There is another thing that I need to address and it’s very important. There have been many comments made during this campaign that in my opinion that have been racist, hateful, and hurtful. I do not condone such comments, and I am asking such individuals from this point forward to please refrain from negative, unproductive comments and statements and keep them to themselves.

Healing needs to happen in our city. All of this happens only if we all work together as a community of individuals who want to see Antioch grow and thrive. I understand there is more than one way to address our pressing issues, and they can only happen in an open and respectful dialogue that every person is valued and important.

I asked three questions when I started this campaign.

Do you feel Antioch is a safe community?
Do you feel that we have good solutions for our homeless community?
Do you feel that our businesses are thriving and new business want to come to Antioch and new jobs are being created?

The resounding answers to all three of these back in January was no and throughout the campaign as I met with the community that is what I continued to be heard. I would have to agree with that.

Our voters said loud and clear they are tired of division, partisan politics, they are tired of chaos. They are tired of Antioch’s reputation of scandals and crisis and tired of being embarrassed to call Antioch their home and I am too. The time for games is over and its time for us to come together as a city council, as a staff and as a community. Division and chaos have no place in my plan for Antioch’s future.

If our initiatives don’t make Antioch safer and build community, then I am not interested in entertaining them. Public safety needs to be our number one priority and I will repeat, public safety needs to be our number one priority and it starts in our most vulnerable neighborhoods.

This is about building a team that understands their mission to work together to serve our city, our residents, our business, our taxpayers, our customers. There will be no blaming or making excuses with this administration. We will be innovative and try new things. We will be transparent and accountable. We will be accessible and professional.

Local government was established to serve our community and this is how I intend for ours to operate. We will make mistakes and when we do, we will admit them and take responsibility. We will quickly change course and achieve better outcomes.

Our voters said loud and clear that they want change and they want it now. I am not about teams, I am not about political parties, or race, I am not about religion or socioeconomic status, fill in the blank, I am about people, all the people of Antioch. A divided Antioch will not stand, I am about Antioch, one Antioch.

I want to thank Mayor Thorpe, councilmember Ogorchock and councilmember Barbanica for their service to our city over the past four years and it is unfortunate they all did not get a chance to make their statements before they departed from the dais because I would have liked to hear what they had to say in their parting comments. But I thank them because this is a difficult job and they did their very best.

I want to thank my leadership team who worked exceptionally hard during this campaign for volunteers, for my family, for my wife who basically released me to do what I plan on doing for the next four years because I’ll be honest, this is a sacrifice and anybody up here can tell you that. Its hard work. Its pretty thankless for the most part, not that we are doing this for thanks but really what we do up here is to really serve the community. So I think I speak for all my fellow councilmembers.

I’ve had the opportunity to have many people praying for this campaign and I want to give special thanks to Cornerstone Prayer Force, the Early Morning Lighthouse Duo and Holy Ghost Deliverance Intercessors who have been key to this. Thank you to the many volunteers who help meet and greets, supported this campaign and they were instrumental in seeing the success of the campaign. Everybody that I met with knew my priorities were community and public safety, I don’t think that was ever deviated from my campaign besides homelessness and seeing our economy get back on our feet again.

I also want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who called me to this position and its only through him that I will find any success in this job that I am endeavoring to do. Will you please join me in this vision, will you please help us build an Antioch for our kids and grandkids and future generations. Generations that will look back on this city council and this community and say this is where one Antioch began.

Its not going to be easy, its not going to be done overnight. It will take hard work, difficult discussions and even more difficult decisions. Its up to us to cease the opportunity to bring unity, understanding, safety and health to our community. Today is a new day, new morning has dawned, we have 1,460 days left and the clock is ticking. Lets get to work.”

Related Stories:

• Dec 11 – Antioch Welcomes Mayor Ron Bernal, Councilmembers Freitas and Rocha
• Dec 9 – East County Cities Prepare for Oath of Office Ceremonies
• Dec 3 – Contra Costa County Election Results Now Certified
• Nov 7 – Ron Bernal Declares Victory in Antioch’s Mayor Race