Antioch

Antioch City Council Cannot “Pause” Oversight Commission

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On Tuesday, the Antioch City Council learned they could not place a temporary pause on its Police Oversight Commission (APOC)

The council held a discussion for a little over an hour of how to move forward with a “pause” and work to create a future plan for APOC. However, due to the way the commission was established, it set up the APOC has an independent commission where the council could only request they consider an item, not be required to take action.

It would be ultimately up to the APOC to vote on an official pause or choose not to meet.

Antioch Mayor Ron Bernal brought the idea to institute a temporary pause on commission meetings until June 2025 in order to provide adequate time to:

  1. Review and Refine the Current Ordinance: Examine the existing framework to ensure it aligns with best practices, the City’s mission and the MOA with the USDOJ.
  2. Interview and Select Additional Commissioners: Allow the City Council to fill vacant seats with qualified candidates. This may involve reopening the application period to receive additional applications from prospective candidates.
  3. Establish a Commissioner Onboarding Process: Establish a checklist and process for onboarding new commissioners.
  4. Provide Comprehensive Training for Commissioners: Ensuring all members are well-prepared to fulfill their duties effectively.
  5. Develop Rules of Decorum: Establish guidelines for the City Council and all City Commissions, all commissioners, board members, and meeting participants to promote professionalism, respect, and effective discussion and collaboration.
  6. Ensure Funding for APOC Training: Allocating resources to support training that equips the commission with the tools needed for success.

According to Antioch Assistant Attorney Kevin Kundinger, he told the council, “The way the Ordinance is currently set up, the council cannot direct APOC to take a pause. Of course, the Ordinance could be amended to give the council that authority.”

He said the council could direct staff to research the Ordinance and bring it back at a future meeting and go through a normal process of changing an ordinance – or the council could make a request to APOC to “consider taking a pause”.

“At the next meeting for example, APOC could have that as an item where they would vote on it and if they have the votes to do that, they could do that,” explained Kundinger.

The APOC committee, with four members, would then have to have a majority vote of 4-0 to take a pause.

Mayor Ron Bernal asked for clarification given the APOC is supposed to meet twice a month except for August and September—calling it ironic the council has no authority.

Kundinger explained the council can direct APOC to consider certain issues, but they do not have the authority direct APOC to take certain actions.  He said APOC is supposed to be an independent commission. He said if the commission decided it would be in their best interest, they could take a pause and could vote on it.

City Manager Bessie Scott added there was nothing in the Ordinance from preventing staff from returning with proposed changes to the Ordinance or return with a plan of action for a pause for APOC—noting anything that gives this commission solid footing only benefits the Antioch Police Department and public.

Councilwoman Tamisha Torres-Walker explained the reason why the commission was set up the way it was, was to ensure “independence outside of political influence”.  She added it needed a level of independence to give it integrity and said it wasn’t the strongest civilian oversight commission but rather the most limited civilian oversight body a city could have being a general law city.

Torres-Walker also agreed with all the recommendations in the staff report.

Mayor Ron Bernal stated he would like to see the process be consistent across all commissions when it came to appointments. He wanted to see the ordinance amended and brought back as quick as possible to address many of the items brought up tonight given the ordinance is going to dictate a lot of the work they are going to do going forward—including reopening up the application process under the new requirements.

Kundinger said he believed they could bring it back by the first meeting in April but confirmed the cleanest way for a pause was to have the APOC meet and vote on a pause at its next meeting.

Councilmember Don Frietas confirmed with Kundinger to approve a pause would require a 4-0 vote given the board size. If the vote was 3-1, a pause would not move forward.

Kundinger confirmed they needed 4-0 votes which would be a majority vote of the body.

After approximately 35 minutes of public comments, the council took action after Mayor Ron Bernal made a statement why he brought the item forward.

“This item was asked to be brought forward because the Department of Justice has requirements in our settlement agreement because the APOC was down to 4 members because there was challenges with training and funding for that, there was challenges with onboarding, challenges with potentially the ordinance and the make up of it, so the goal was to take a pause for the meetings only, the APOC was going to continue doing what they were doing while we were interviewing and getting new people on board,” explained Bernal. “That was supposed to be what this was all about, it wasn’t supposed to be about the obvious conflict that this all created so I apologize for that. That it has turned into this, but the bottom line is we want to make this APOC as good of a commission as it could be. We want people well trained, the community well represented, we want to make sure people know what the commission can and cannot do, what their role and responsibilities are and, in my opinion, and the reason for the pause was those things needed to be shored up. We also have a new city manager who is an expert in this area along with a police chief that has been working with her that I truly believe wants to see the APOC become a well-functioning group of commissioners because it is very important, and we do have up to five years on our settlement agreement with the Department of Justice. The intention behind this, and again I apologize, never to create division, never create conflict and never to take up two-and-a-half hours of peoples lives. It was to talk about ways to make this better. So that is still the intent behind the motion to direct staff to repair and return with a plan with these six items on here to work quickly towards a commission that is going to serve the community well, the police department well, and the Department of Justice potentially the California Department of Justice as well as we work forward with this.”

The council voted 4-0 to direct staff to prepare and return with a plan of action to review the ordinance while request the APOC vote to take a pause at its next meeting.

Staff Report – click here

February 11 Statement

At the February 11 meeting, Bernal issued the following statement during his mayor comments:

“With the resignation of Ms. May from the APOC, as Councilmember Torres-Walker mentioned, we are down to 4 members which is out of compliance. I am going to be proposing a pause on the meetings for that group until June while we do a few things to get that group in order,” stated Bernal. “One of them is recruiting three new people to serve on that commission which is very important. I’d also like to take a look at the ordinance to the extent to make sure it meets the current needs of our community, coincides with the DOJ settlement that we have with the United States Government and that its something that works well for our vision moving forward as a city. We are also going to be developing rules of decorum.”

Bernal said they have a city council retreat next week where they will work on that—along with developing council priorities. He said the decorum would be applicable to all commissions and boards once adopted through Resolution, including the city council and people who participate in meetings.

“I also want to make sure we have adequate funding for the APOC to make sure they are getting the training and everything they need so that when we do hit the ground running again when we start that back up again in June or so that it is fully functioning group of individuals who are running it.”

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