Dear Editor:

I take pride in knowing that our Democracy has once again allowed the people to exercise their right to vote. I also take pride in the fact that so many people voted for me in this election. Concession statements are hard, but are needed.

I wish congratulations to all the winners of the City of Antioch election. I know the final votes are not in, or certified, but I also know that with such a margin, this time, I will not accomplish the goal of obtaining a seat at the table. It was a well-fought campaign. And I am very proud that we stayed above the fray and respectfully debated and let the people decide the outcome.

I thank the more than 1,700 residents and community members that cast their vote for me in this election. I assure you that I will continue to fight for our needs as a City and as neighbors. I truly appreciate your support.

I thank my family for the support and kind words during the last 18 months of this effort. I love you, and let me assure you that I have used this effort to better myself, and to remember who I am.

Although I am disappointed by the outcome, I am not giving up in my growth and I will continue to be an active citizen in the process of repairing the City that I live in. I sincerely hope you will take similar actions in your Cities so that all communities will tackle today’s challenges.

I am very lucky for the great love and support of my wife Tina Chavez-Rouse. Her never-ending confidence in me, not only in my entire life (we met in High School), but her focused support of me during the last 18 months, has been a gift from God. She spoke up for me, collected signatures, helped me place signs, let us spend our family money, and helped me sculpt my statements.

Finally, to the people who did not vote for me. We have yet to meet. You have yet to hear my words, and get to know me. I think if I work hard, you will know me. And possibly then, we will, together, really take on the challenge of change. Remember, even at our City level, a small local race can change your life. Thank you.

Frederick Rouse

Antioch

By Allen Payton

In an email to the mayor and council members, Tuesday night at 9:17 p.m., Antioch City Manager Steve Duran offered his tentative plans for retirement, for next summer. In the email, he wrote:

Mayor and City Council Members,

This is just a heads-up on my tentative retirement plans.  I have set a tentative date of August 15, 2017, but that could change given how far out it is. This is not an official 45 day notice of contract termination as required under my contract dated December 10, 2013. In the coming months I plan to set a firm retirement date and provide official notice as required under said contract.

There are a couple of reasons I am doing this now rather than waiting until, say, after the holidays.  First, although we have done succession planning and we have strong internal candidates to succeed me, I want you to have plenty of time to determine your process for appointing the next City Manager. Second, I don’t want anyone to think that the timing of my departure is in any way connected to the results of our local election for the Mayor and two City Council Members. Rather, it is all about me and my family and having time to spend with my wife, and my daughter and her young family, as well as other family and friends.  I am sure the Lord will have a few other things for me to do as well.

I will, of course, be happy to assist you with the process of choosing a new City Manager as you see fit.

Obviously, it’s way too early for goodbyes, but I want you to know that you are the best City Council with which I have had the pleasure of working over my nearly 19 years in local government.

In a brief interview on Wednesday afternoon, when asked if his retirement plans were due to the election results, Duran said, “No, it was planned by me.”

“I’ll turn 62 in February,” he continued. “That will be 40 years in. It’s time to pull back and not work full time. Time with family and friends and walking the dog.

“I want to definitely get through the budget process,” Duran added. “The next two-year budget needs to get approved in June.”

Duran started working as Antioch’s city manager on January 7, 2014. Among other things, he has shepherded the city during some difficult times of rebuilding, including the implementatiom of Measure C’s half-cent sales tax revenue, the passage of Measure O – the residential rental property business license tax, eliminating the Furlough Fridays and putting all city workers back to work full-time, the Downtown Specific Plan Update, and the promotion of Public Works Director Ron Bernal as the part-time Assistant City Manager.

By Allen Payton

According to County Clerk-Recorder-Registrar of Voters Joe Canciamilla, there are still about 180,000 ballots to be counted in the county. As of the update Wednesday morning at 1:03 AM on the County Elections website, there were 305,123 ballots that were counted. That means about one-third of the ballots cast in Tuesday’s elections have yet to be counted.

“We have approximately 150,000 ballots in house and are expecting more as we pick up the boxes from the City Clerks, and from the mail-in ballots that can be received until Monday,” Canciamilla responded. “I would estimate that we will ultimately have around 180,000 in total.”

“We are having extra crews in today and tomorrow to process as much of the vote-by-mail that we can and hope to have two updates of the results, tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon,” he continued. “The balance of the ballots will not be completed until next week as we will have to process all of the regular ballots and update our records before we can finish with the provisionals.”

A provisional ballot is one that is turned in at the polls by a voter not voting in their assigned precinct. Those ballots get counted last.

For the latest elections information in the county, visit www.cocovote.us. For state and federal races visit the California Secretary of State’s website at http://vote.sos.ca.gov/.

By Allen Payton

After trailing incumbent Wade Harper in the early returns in the race for Antioch Mayor, Tuesday night, Antioch Chamber of Commerce CEO and chiropractor Dr. Sean Wright pulled ahead with the 10:37 PM election results update from the County Elections website. He was celebrating his expected victory with family, friends and other supporters at Tailgaters in Antioch after the polls closed at 8:00 p.m.

The latest results show Wright had 7,368 votes for 34.66% of the vote, just 208 votes over Harper’s 7,160 giving him 33.69% of the vote. Antioch Mayor Pro Tem Lori Ogorchock was in third with 4,790 votes for 22.54%, and Gil Murillo who dropped out of the race and gave his support to Wright, still ended up with 1,883 votes for 8.89% of the vote.

In the council race, Lamar Thorpe pulled into first place ahead of incumbent Councilwoman Monica Wilson who leads fellow incumbent Councilwoman Mary Rocha. The top two vote-getters win.

The latest results show Thorpe with 8,242 votes for 25.97% of the vote, Wilson with 7,565 votes for 23.84% and Rocha, who said this will be her last campaign, trailing in third with 6,699 with 21.11%. Antioch contractor and business owner Kenny Turnage II was in a distant fourth place with 5,393 votes for 16.99% of the vote. He was followed by the two retirees, neither of whom spent more than $2,000 on their campaigns, Karl Dietzel with 1,986 votes for 6.26% and Fred Rouse with 1,785 votes for 5.62% of the vote. Dietzel had fallen during the campaign and injured his shoulder, limiting his ability to campaign. But, as of Monday he said he is healing.

Although there are still about one-third of the ballots left to be counted in the county, Wright was happy with the results and expects to hold on for the victory.

“Wow. There have been an incredible amount of calls, texts, posts, and private messages coming through the pipeline,” he shared when reached for comment, on Wednesday. “I appreciate everyone’s efforts throughout this campaign. A thank you to Lori Ogorchock, Wade Harper, and Gil Murillo for their commitment to our community.”

“Thank you to those that voted for me,” Wright continued. “To those that didn’t, I wish to work closely with you to make Antioch a place where we can all come together as one to live, work, play, and worship. We as a council have our work cut out for us. I’m excited to be your Mayor-elect.”

Last night, all Thorpe could say was “Wow.” However, on Wednesday, he offered more extensive comments.

“Thank you to citizens of Antioch,” he said. “I’m very proud I could earn their trust in leading our city through its next chapter.”

“Of course I want to thank my lovely wife Patrice for her support and encouraging me to run a couple months, and for the support of my daughter who enthusiastically woke up last night to make sure I was winning,” Thorpe said with a laugh.

An attempt to reach Harper for a comment asking if he had conceded the race, yet, was unsuccessful prior to publication times, as was an attempt to reach Wilson for comment on her re-election.

By Allen Payton

As the rest of the votes are still being counted by County Elections Division staff, as of Tuesday night’s results, in the Antioch School Board race challenger and newcomer Crystal Sawyer-White is barely in first place with 8,087 votes for 19.61% of the vote among the seven candidates seeking three seats. In second is incumbent Diane Gibson-Gray who appears to be re-elected for a third term with 7,511 votes for 18.22% of the vote and former school board member Gary Hack is in third place with 6,910 votes for 16.76%.

He’s ahead of fellow former school board member Joy Motts, who had 6,510 votes for 15.79% of the vote. Appointed incumbent Fernando Navarro came in a distant fifth place with 5,047 votes for 12.24%, followed by news site publisher Mike Burkholder in sixth with 4,109 votes and 9.19%, and the other appointed incumbent Alonzo Terry, placed last with 2,935 votes for 7.12% of the vote.

Both Hack and Motts served on the board until each losing their re-election efforts in 2014. Both also applied for the appointments to fill board vacancies, last year and earlier this year, when Navarro and Terry were appointed, instead.

In a brief comment, Tuesday night, Sawyer-White wrote “Wow! I am so excited!”

“I would like to thank all my supporters, family and friends,” she stated on Wednesday. “I am humbled to be elected and looking forward to working with our Superintendent, Stephanie and all the board members. Let’s put our children first.”

Sawyer-White, Navarro and Terry were all backed by the California Charter Schools Association Advocates with independent expenditure financed mailers. Gibson-Gray, Hack and Motts were all supported by the Antioch Education Association, which is the local teachers’ union, which contributed directly to their campaigns, as well as paid for an independent expenditure mailer. The latter three also had the support of the California Schools Employees Association, which includes the district’s non-faculty staff, and the district’s management staff, which includes the principals. The management staff also supported Burkholder.

Neither Gibson-Gray nor Hack could be reached for comment prior to publication time.

According to County Clerk and Registrar of Voters Joe Canciamilla, the County Elections office still has approximately 180,000 votes to count in the county. They expect the next update to be provided Thursday afternoon and will be available on their website www.cocovote.us.

By Sergeant Tom Fuhrmann, Antioch Police Investigations Bureau

On Tuesday, November 8, 2016 at approximately 8:45 PM, Antioch Police Officers were dispatched to an address in the 2100 block of Manzanita Way on the report of suspicious activity around a vacant residence. When officers arrived on scene they found the residence was filled with smoke. The fire department responded and found there had been a fire inside the residence and they located the deceased body of a male that had been burned. The residence had minor damage from the fire and did not affect neighboring homes.

Antioch Police Investigators were called to the scene and are in the early stages of the investigation into this suspicious death. No further information will be released at this time.

Anyone with information regarding this case is encouraged to call Detective Colley with the Antioch Police Department at (925) 779-6922. You may also text a tip to 274637 (CRIMES) using key word ANTIOCH.

By Allen Payton

Long-time Antioch residents Malcolm and Rosanna Hunter vote in every election. Malcolm usually votes by mail. But, this year he decided to drop off his mail-in ballot at the polls. When they went to their usual polling place at Carmen Dragon Elementary School, their names weren’t on the list of registered voters.

Performing a search on the County Elections office website, using their home address, it shows their polling place is at Carmen Dragon Elementary, where Rosanna votes each election.

They had heard of problems like this occurring elsewhere throughout the country, or people’s votes being changed by the machine they’re using, or only seeing Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s and her running mate, Tim Kaine’s names on the ballot.

The Hunters called the County Elections office and Malcolm said the staff member, there confirmed they were on the list of registered voters and for voting at that polling location.

However, Rosanna was given a provisional ballot to cast her votes. They thought that means her ballot won’t be counted unless an election is close.

When reached for comment, Melissa Hickok of the County Elections Division office said, “They (the Hunters) are on the master voter list. The voter rosters are for people who are supposed to vote at that polling place. Those are the precinct voters for that precinct. Permanent vote-by-mail voters are not on the precinct rosters.”

“I’m showing her polling place at Carmen Dragon Elementary,” she added. “That polling place might have had more than one precinct. She might have been at the wrong table.

After doing a brief bit of research, Hickok said, “Carmen Dragon does have two precincts.”

Asked if the poll workers are trained to know that and instruct voters about it, she responded, “A seasoned poll worker would. I’m not sure how seasoned our staff was, out there.”

“Her provisional ballot will still be counted,” Hickok said. “Provisionals are not counted on Election Day. What we do is we count Election Day votes and vote-by-mail votes which are tied to the voter ID.”

“Then we look at the provisional ballots, last and we compare the name to their information in our system,” she explained. “Then if there hasn’t another ballot voted for by that person already, we run their ballot and it gets counted.”

“If she wants to go back and check the master voting list her name will be there,” Hickok stated.

“If she chooses to go back, have her ask for the inspector. Don’t talk to any of the front lines, about seeing the master voting list,” Hickok instructed. “If she (Mrs. Hunter) votes in the correct precinct, then her provisional wouldn’t get counted, because she had already voted.”

The polls close at 8:00 p.m., tonight. Election results will be posted to the Elections website, www.cocovote.us, throughout the night and will be updated by 5:00 pm on Thursday November 10th and then every Friday until the election is certified.

The county has until December 6th to certify the Presidential Election and until December 8th to certify all other items on the ballot.

Local election results will also be available throughout Election Night on Contra Costa Television (CCTV) beginning at 9:00 pm on Comcast channel 27, Astound channel 32 and AT&T U-Verse channel 99.

Glover says he thought it was a recommendation letter for a job

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: We have made it a practice of not publishing articles regarding campaigns on Election Day. However, due to the seriousness of the issue and timing of when this information came to light, which we learned of last night, on this matter I am making an exception.

By Allen Payton

In a last minute attack in the campaign for Supervisor in District 5, the Contra Costa Deputy Sheriffs Association (DSA), on Monday morning, sent out a press release expressing concern about Supervisor Federal Glover writing a letter asking for leniency for a family friend facing criminal trial. The DSA is backing Martinez Councilwoman Anamarie Avila Farias in her campaign to unseat Glover.

In his letter sent to the court on August 1st, 2016, Glover “used his status and office to lobby for leniency from the District Attorney and Judge for a family friend arrested after a violent crime spree,” the Deputy Sheriffs claim.

In the letter written on Glover’s official Supervisor letterhead, (see below) he wrote “It is with a great deal of pleasure that I write this letter of support for (the defendant’s name was redacted).”

However, when reached for comment, Glover said he thought it was a recommendation letter for a job.

“This is not uncommon. This is done all the time,” he said.

“It was written over an individual that I’d known and his family,” Glover explained. “I thought it was for a job. It was a very generic letter that we do all the time. I was unaware that it had anything to do with a court case or an incident at a bar, that he was involved in. This was a letter that his father requested it.

“The letter has nothing to do with a court room,” he repeated.

Asked when the Deputy Sheriffs knew about the letter and why it came out the day before the election, DSA President Shawn Welch said, “A citizen came to us who had done a public records request, last month and he sent it to us. I received it last Thursday.”

“We were kind of going back and forth and we drafted a letter and we decided to send it out and we sent a press release, yesterday around 10:00 a.m,” he continued.

“It’s been on our Facebook page, which has gotten over 11,000 reach,” Welch shared. “The guy was arrested in the middle of July and Glover wrote the letter August 1st.”

“We had done all our opp (opposition) research (on Glover) for the IE (independent expenditure campaign) we’re running prior to that,” he added.

Welch provided a copy of Glover’s letter and documents about the charges against Glover’s friend, which can be viewed, here: glover-letter-court-documents

After receiving Glover’s explanation, Welch responded, “The letter was sent to the DA. If I send a letter of recommendation I send it to the person who requested it not the person it is about.”

“Sounds like an excuse,” he added.

The press release had more to say about Glover’s letter.

“In stark contrast to his jovial tone are the suspect’s violent criminal charges. The Supervisor is calling in favors for a suspect arrested after assaulting a man with a firearm, attempting to rob two women at gunpoint, and threatening to kill his victims,” the press release read.

“For Supervisor Glover to lobby for leniency for a dangerous repeat criminal jeopardizes the public and the efforts of hundreds of law enforcement officers throughout the County” said Welch. “The men and women of the Deputy Sheriffs Association have done an excellent job of protecting the people of the County, even during difficult times. Asking a political favor from the District Attorney to be lenient on dangerous criminals makes our job unnecessarily more difficult and dangerous”.

Welch added, “It would be a travesty of justice if Supervisor Glover’s request of leniency resulted in reduced charges for this dangerous criminal. Peace officers did their job in this case, putting a bad guy on trial. A political favor could snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in the war on crime. Frankly, the mere attempt to use one’s position of political power to gain leniency for a violent criminal is inappropriate and epitomizes the disconnect between Glover and the safety of the public in this county”.

“Every politician who lobbies for special leniency for violent criminals in this county can fully expect to be held accountable by the Deputy Sheriffs Association and its constituents. The truth about political lobbying for leniency is that it puts the public at risk. It does not put the public’s safety first and creates a dangerous situation for Deputies”, said Welch.

The press release also stated the “DSA is asking for District Attorney Mark Peterson, the Deputy District Attorneys Association, and the Sheriff to address Glover’s letter, and to reassure the public that political interference from a County Supervisor has no place in criminal justice, and that Glover’s letter will not result in more favorable plea terms for the suspect in custody.

This is only one example why the Deputy Sheriffs Association has endorsed Anamarie Avila Farias for Supervisor to replace Glover. Anamarie Farias’ steadfast support of public safety is the primary reason she won the overwhelming endorsement of the Deputy Sheriff’s Association. Anamarie has also earned the endorsement of police in Pinole, Hercules, Martinez, Antioch, plus the County Firefighters Local 1230.”

Multiple attempts to reach Glover for comment for this story were unsuccessful before publication time. Disrict 5 includes most of the portion of Antioch north of Highway 4 and west of Highway 160.