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Posted in: Community, Holiday, Military & Veterans, Rivertown | Comments (0)
With Pancake Breakfast, Ceremony, Veterans of the Year presentation and Parade along new route, this year
Publisher @ November 4, 2026
Posted in: City Council, News, Politics & Elections, School Board | Comments (0)
But “thousands of ballots” in the county, as many as “40 to 50 percent of all ballots” remain to be counted
By Allen D. Payton
As of 12:12 AM Wednesday morning, the results from Election Night, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, show two incumbents and one challenger leading in their respective races for the Antioch City Council and School Board. In the District 4 Antioch City Council race, incumbent Monica Wilson appears to be headed for reelection as she has a wide lead over her three opponents, and in the Trustee Area 5 race for the Antioch School Board, incumbent Mary Rocha is leading challenger and newcomer, Brandon Dawkins. In the other city council race in District 1, former Councilwoman Joy Motts is leading incumbent Tamisha Torres-Walker in their third match-up in as many elections. All three started in the lead since the initial returns were posted Tuesday night.
The information is based on the “Unofficial Results – Election Night Final” by the Contra Costa Elections office, with “100% of Precincts Reporting”. However, the numbers only include ballots cast at early polling places beginning last Friday, on Election Day, or received in the mail or picked up from the 43 drop boxes throughout the county by Monday.
According to Elections office staff on Wednesday, there are still “thousands and thousands of ballots” remaining to be counted. That’s because those were placed in the 43 drop boxes, including two in Antioch on Tuesday. The staff member said they were surprised at how many ballots were dropped off yesterday and they had to conduct at least two rounds of pick-ups. Elections office staff picked up ballots from the drop boxes which were full yesterday morning, then went out and picked up more throughout the day as they filled up again.
“We were out all day. They came to the office and emptied them and went back out to pick up more,” said Elections office spokesperson Dawn Kruger. Those don’t include the ballots mailed and postmarked by 5:00 p.m. yesterday which can still arrive by next Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. “About 40 to 50 percent of the total ballots usually come on and just after Election Day,” she stated.
District 4 Council Race
The Election Night results show Wilson has 2,429 votes or 44.07 percent of the vote and third-time challenger Sandra White in a distant second with 1,594 votes or 28.92 percent. In third place is newcomer Matty Matthews Alappat with 904 votes, or 16.5 percent of the vote, serving as a spoiler to White, and local homeless and affordable housing advocate, Andrew Becker, also running for office for the first time, in fourth place with just 585 votes or 10.61 percent. In response to the initial results, White said, “I’m not running for local office, again.”
School Board Trustee Area 5 Race
In the Antioch School Board Trustee Area 5 race the latest results show Rocha has increased her lead by the number of votes but decreased in percentage over Dawkins. She now has 1,795 votes or 58.79 percent to his 1,258 votes or 41.21 percent of the vote. When reached for comment Tuesday night about possibly being reelected Rocha said simply, “It’s too early to tell.”
District 1 Council Race
Finally, in the District 1 Council race, the latest results show Motts maintaining her lead over Torres-Walker, but it had narrowed with each of the two updates. The challenger and former councilwoman now has 1,795 votes – matching Rocha’s current vote count – or 54.16 percent of the vote and Torres-Walker has 1,519 votes or 45.84 percent of the vote. So, the challenger has a current lead of 276 votes over the incumbent.
This is the third time they’ve faced each other, with Torres-Walker unseating Motts in 2020 by 212 votes, then barely beating her in 2022 by just four votes. But both of those races included a third candidate, former Councilman Manny Soliz in 2020 and former School Board Trustee Diane Gibson-Gray in 2022, splitting the vote and allowing Torres-Walker to be elected and reelected with just 36.2 and 34.4 percent of the vote, respectively.
Although she “fully intended to run again” Gibson-Gray later announced in August she would not run, which allowed a head-to-head race between just the current and former councilwomen.
To project what could happen with the remaining ballots based on the turnout four years ago when there were 4,622 votes cast in the District 1 race, plus, a 4.4 percent increase in voter registration countywide since then, that would assume 4,825 total votes were cast in this year’s race. Out of the 1,511 additional assumed votes, Torres-Walker would have to receive 59.2% percent of the remaining votes or 894 votes to 617 for Motts to catch up and take the lead by one vote. However, the incumbent only picked up 54.8 percent of the 429 additional votes in the second update, and 57.2 percent of the 152 votes in the third and final, smaller update last night. But it is still a possibility.
In response to the results and the narrowing vote gap, Motts said Tuesday night, “We’ve been here, before. So, it’s still too soon to know.”
Voter Registration, Next Update & Certification Date
According to Kruger, there are 67,753 registered voters in the city of Antioch and 70,079 in the Antioch Unified School District which has different boundaries than the city.
They don’t know yet how many ballots remain to be counted, but expect to have an update by Thursday afternoon, she shared. “We prepared everything last night so we could put the ballots through the sorter, start checking signatures and we can get through as much of it be Friday,” Kruger added. “That’s our plan.”
According to the schedule on the Elections office website, the Target Certification / Final Results are projected for Dec. 3rd.
Publisher @ November 4, 2026
Posted in: Business, Opinion | Comments (0)
By Karen Kerrigan
Small businesses are the engine of America’s economic and technological future, and the Trump administration knows it. Administration officials have repeatedly cited startup formation and entrepreneurship as key to addressing the nation’s most urgent policy challenges, from AI advancement and scientific leadership to job creation and reindustrialization.
To aid startup growth, administration officials have worked to expand government-backed financing for small firms, attract more private capital to startups, and help entrepreneurs commercialize emerging technologies and leverage domestic manufacturing.
Still, one of the most important ways to strengthen America’s startup ecosystem requires no new federal initiatives or additional funding at all. It simply requires policymakers to preserve a longstanding legal framework that has fueled American entrepreneurship for more than four decades.
Congress passed the bipartisan Bayh-Dole Act in 1980 to create a more effective pathway for federally funded research to become new technologies, products, and businesses — by letting universities, nonprofit research institutions, small businesses, and federal laboratories keep the patent rights to inventions they developed with federal support. That created incentives for universities to license those discoveries to small companies, which could then use the patents to attract capital and invest in further development.
Four and a half decades later, the Bayh-Dole framework remains indispensable to American small business growth.
New research shows that from 2021 through 2025, universities, hospitals, and nonprofit research institutes averaged more than 19,000 income-generating licenses each year — approximately twice the annual average from the early 2000s. Roughly 70% of university licensing agreements are with startups and small companies.
In many cases, those licensing agreements give rise to entirely new companies. Since 2001, the Bayh-Dole system has helped launch more than 19,000 startups.
As these businesses grow, they hire workers, do business with other local companies, and strengthen their regional economies. Since 1996, the Bayh-Dole system has contributed up to $1.7 trillion to U.S. GDP and supported up to 7.6 million years’ worth of jobs for Americans.
Unfortunately, in recent years, the Bayh-Dole system has faced growing uncertainty.
Some policymakers are debating changes that could reduce startups’ access to innovative, federally funded research. One proposed rule change would allow the government to cancel long-term research funding on a political whim. Meanwhile, one agency adopted guidelines that make industry licenses less secure by requiring ongoing product-access plans that can be used to revoke licenses even after products have been developed, which directly violates Bayh-Dole.
That uncertainty could have devastating consequences for startups and America’s innovation ecosystem. Startups often build their businesses around a single unproven invention, and they have fewer resources than larger companies to absorb the risks of developing a new product and bringing it to market.
If small companies cannot reliably protect their patent rights, it could become much harder for them to raise the investment needed to continue researching, testing, and manufacturing new technologies.
Instead of altering the Bayh-Dole system, policymakers must preserve it. Protecting this framework will help ensure that startups can continue turning federally supported discoveries into new companies, jobs, and technologies that strengthen American competitiveness.
Karen Kerrigan is president and CEO of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council in Washington. This column originally appeared at DCJournal.com.
Publisher @ November 3, 2026
Posted in: Community | Comments (0)
By Antioch Police Department
Come join us for a great cause at Smith’s Landing Seafood Grill on Thursday, November 5th, from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM for Tip a Cop. All proceeds benefit Special Olympics of Northern California.
Antioch Police Officers will be working alongside the service staff to collect tips / donations from guests to raise funds for Special Olympics.
100 percent of your “special tips” will help support year-round sports training and competition for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.
Smith’s Landing is located at 1 Marina Plaza, at the foot of L Street in Antioch.
Publisher @ November 3, 2026
Posted in: Business, Rivertown | Comments (0)
By Michael Gabrielson
Join us Saturday and Sunday, Nov 7th and 8th from 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. to celebrate our 11th Anniversary at Willow Park Mercantile! Come help us get into The Christmas Spirit as we kick-off our Winter Wonderland – featuring coupons, drawings, refreshments and great shopping fun. Take a Christmas selfie in our antique “One-Horse Open Sleigh”!
Our first 50 customers will receive a special gift with purchase of $50 or more.
Don’t miss the savings and fun. We appreciate your business and continued support shopping local. You are the reason we are still in business.
Please come celebrate with us!
For more information visit https://www.facebook.com/WillowParkMercantile/events.
Willow Park Mercantile is located at 205 G Street in Antioch’s historic, downtown Rivertown.
Publisher @ November 2, 2026
Posted in: Government, Growth & Development, Housing, News | Comments (0)
Will again discuss the General Plan Land Use Map
Save Mount Diablo again tries to stop Zeka Ranch development with disinformation to residents after losing in court six years ago
By Allen D. Payton
The City of Antioch has announced the fourth meeting of the General Plan Advisory Committee will be held on Tuesday November 3rd at 6:00 PM in the Antioch City Council Chambers at City Hall located at 200 H Street in Antioch’s downtown Rivertown.
According to the City staff report, “The fourth GPAC meeting will continue the GPAC’s discussion of land use and the General Plan Land Use Map. At the September 1st meeting, the GPAC received foundational land use information, including the Existing Conditions Report Land Use Chapter, the Land Use Designation Change Requests, pending, approved, and under construction projects, and a map of preliminary vacant and underutilized sites and sites with open space and conservation easements. The October 6th meeting addressed economic development and fiscal sustainability, which provides important context for the land uses Antioch should plan for.
“Our objectives for this meeting are:
• Receive GPAC input on the locations and land use changes that will best attract investment, catalyze redevelopment of underperforming properties, expand local employment, and increase entertainment/third-space opportunities
• Translate the GPAC’s previously identified priorities into specific land use mapping approaches to be tested in the Land Use Map alternatives.
“The GPAC is not being asked to identify every change recommended for the Land Use Map or to go through the City at the parcel-level. Rather, we are seeking big-picture direction on where land use changes can do the most to attract private investment and create jobs, which uses are missing from Antioch’s land use mix, and how underperforming shopping centers, corridors, and vacant sites should be repositioned. Based on GPAC and community input, the General Plan Update (GPU) team will prepare two to three Land Use Map Alternatives. “The alternatives will be presented in the Land Use Alternatives Report to the public, the GPAC, the Planning Commission, and the City Council for input before a preferred Land Use Map is identified.”
Another Effort to Stop Zeka Ranch
Save Mount Diablo is again trying to rally Antioch residents to oppose the Zeka Ranch new home development. It comes after they pushed Measure T in 2020 which would have devalued the property to pennies on the dollar without compensation by reducing the number of homes planned there from 300 to just eight on the 640-acre parcel, after the developer previously reduced the total from 1,100 homes.
That followed the East Bay Regional Park District drawing an arbitrary line on the map threatening the City they would sue if homes were approved outside the line, despite the voters voting six times to allow housing on the property as it’s located both inside the County’s and City’s Urban Limit Lines. (See related articles here and here)
Instead of fighting it, the Zeka Group voluntarily reduced plans to 338 homes on 196 acres, leaving over 440 acres as future open space.
Furthermore, the measure was tossed out of court because it also violated state law which prohibits downzoning residential property by either council action or citizen initiative. (See related articles here and here)
This time Save Mount Diablo is attempting to use the issue of fire danger and traffic on Empire Mine Road as the reasons, and they’re lying to Antioch residents in both fliers distributed door-to-door and a a post on the organization’s Facebook page on Thursday they wrote, “Please speak up to protect the Zeka property next Tuesday, November 3, at 6:00 PM, at Antioch City Hall, 200 H Street.
‘Zeka,’ the southwest corner of Antioch, is land mapped by CAL FIRE as being in ‘Very High and High Fire Hazard Severity Zones,’ so it’s *not* a good place to build homes. But developers want to cover 640 acres in dense housing. Instead, it should be protected: Zeka is surrounded on three sides by protected open space. If you live in Antioch, the city wants to hear your voice! Please show up and encourage them to protect this beautiful area.”
However, that is incorrect. The current plan only allows housing on a portion of the 640 acres, in fact less than 200 acres as mentioned above, which will result in an average of one home for every two acres for the entire parcel.
Plus, according to Save Mount Diablo’s map, the adjacent property to the east of the Zeka Ranch, known as The Ranch, where 1,177 homes have been approved to be built, is in the same exact Fire Hazard Severity Zone. Plus, the area on the east side of Deer Valley Road where most of the new homes that have already been built are located, is also in the same zone. So, City staff and past Councils already took that into consideration when approving the homes and zoning in the Sand Creek area.
Plus, all the homes west of Deer Valley Road that have either been approved or have yet to be are within the total 4,000 homes approved by the City Council in 2003. That is much less than the total 9,500 homes originally planned for the area prior to that year which also included the homes that were to be built around the Roddy Ranch Golf Course which is now open space.
More Misinformation in Flier Distributed to Antioch Residents
The reverse side of the flier which shows the Sand Creek Area map above asks the question in a headline, “A Square Mile of Houses Choking Empire Mine Road?” It also reads, “Tell City Leaders to…Keep Empire Mine Rd as Wonderful Recreational Path.”
But Empire Mine Road, which, except for emergency vehicles, has been closed to vehicle travel for years and only pedestrians, bicycles and horseback riders are allowed to use the road, and it will not be the access road for The Zeka Ranch project. Instead, the access will be from a road through the neighboring The Ranch project off of the future extension of Dallas Ranch Road, which, when it crosses Deer Valley Road, will connect to and become Sand Creek Road as shown in the map below.
Alternative Option
What the General Plan Advisory Committee can do is correct the arbitrary decision of the East Bay Regional Park District and change the zoning boundary to again allow the 1,100 homes on the flat land of the Zeka Ranch property.
Meeting Details
The GPAC meeting will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 3 at 6:00 p.m. inside the Council Chambers at City Hall 200 H Street in Antioch’s historic, downtown Rivertown.
See agenda and meeting materials here: General Plan Advisory Committee Nov. 3, 2026 Agenda and Item5-1_LandUseMap_Draft
Public Comments
General public comments on items not on the agenda but on an issue related to the General Plan will be allowed at the beginning of the meeting. Then comments specifically about the agenda item will be allowed prior to discussion by the committee members. Prior to 12:00 p.m. the day of the meeting: Written comments may be sent to Community & Economic Development Department, City Hall, 200 H Street (P. O. Box 5007) or submitted electronically to planning@antiochca.gov. All comments received by that time will be provided to the General Plan Advisory Committee Members at the meeting.
To stay up to date on the General Plan Update process you can visit the project website at: https://antioch.generalplan.org/.
Publisher @ November 1, 2026
Posted in: Community | Comments (0)
Oath of Office Ceremony Nov. 3rd
By Antioch Police Department
On Friday, Oct. 30, 2026, we had the honor of attending the graduation of our newest officers! Please join us in congratulating:
Chief Joe Vigil was there to congratulate each new officer in person at the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office Training Academy.
We are incredibly proud of each of them and excited to see them take the next step in their law enforcement careers as they begin field training! This is an exciting milestone, and we look forward to watching them continue to learn, grow, and serve our Antioch community.
Congratulations, officers! We’re cheering you on, every step of the way!
Each of the new officers will be given their oath of office during a ceremony on Tuesday, Nov. 3 at the Antioch Police Facility, along with newly promoted Sergeant Zachary Sampson and Corporal Brandon Bushby.
Allen D. Payton contributed to this report.
Publisher @ November 1, 2026
Posted in: Community | Comments (0)
Presented by Truth Bearer International Bay Area church in Antioch, One Warm Coat and Antioch Police Department
By Katrece Holloway, Truth Bearer International Bay Area
One Warm Coat Giveaway on Saturday, November 14th at Antioch City Park. Truth Bearer International (TBI) Bay Area church is an official partner with One Warm Coat and the Antioch Police Department will be helping us hand out hotdogs and coats.
TBI Bay Area is so excited to be giving back to our community through our members, co-workers, family, friends and local businesses. They have all helped us collect coats.
We are an official partner with One Warm Coat and we’re excited to bring the city of Antioch a coat giveaway from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. or until most coats are gone. Our local Antioch Police Department will be joining us to hand out coats and hot dogs. We love our community!
Join us at Antioch City Park at the corner of W. 10th and A Streets. Come pray with us, grab some free coats and food!
Visit our website for more information at https://truthbearerinternational.org.
FREE FOOD, FREE PRAYERS and FREE COATS WILL BE AVAILABLE THAT DAY!
Publisher @ October 31, 2026
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