Archive for March, 2018

Rivertown Easter Egg Hunt in Antioch’s historic downtown Saturday, March 31

Tuesday, March 20th, 2018

Antioch yard sale to support mission trip to Philippines Saturday, March 24

Tuesday, March 20th, 2018

Antioch Police Department hires another new officer

Saturday, March 17th, 2018

Chief Brooks and new Officer Price Kendall. Photo by APD

From Antioch Police Facebook Page

On Monday, March 12, Antioch Police Chief Tammany Brooks swore in lateral police officer, Price Kendall. Price was raised in the Bay Area and went to Vanden High School in Fairfield. After college, Price played professional baseball for the Winnipeg Goldeyes.

After hanging up his cleats, Price began his law enforcement career working for the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department. Price left the Sheriff’s Department to work for the Belmont Police Department. Price was assigned to the patrol division before accepting a job with Antioch Police Department.

In his free time, Price enjoys working out and spending time with his family and friends. A fun fact about Price is that he is an avid roller skater and his owns his own pair of roller skates.

Former Antioch Mayor and Chief of Police Len Herendeen passes

Friday, March 16th, 2018

According to Antioch City Clerk Arne Simonsen, former Antioch Chief of Police and Mayor Len Herendeen suffered a stroke on Monday and passed away on Thursday afternoon. According to Len’s widow, Barbara a memorial service is planned for sometime in April. Please check back later for more information.

Women’s History Month art show in Antioch Saturday, March 31

Friday, March 16th, 2018

Antioch awarded $10 million from state for brackish water desalination plant

Friday, March 16th, 2018

How brackish water is formed.

One of only four California cities or water agencies to receive the highly competitive water quality grant

The City of Antioch has announced its award as only one of four California cities or water agencies to receive $10 million in state grant funding to establish a ground-breaking, first-of-its-kind, local brackish water desalination treatment facility. It will allow the City to generate its own clean, safe, quality water. Many prominent cities and water agencies competed for the highly-sought after grants from the State Department of Water Resources to fund drinking water production and other uses. Only Antioch, Santa Barbara, Camarillo and the South Coast Water District were awarded grants for construction of water treatment plants.

“Creating millions of gallons of clean, reliable, quality water will allow our community to protect our city residents and businesses from fluctuating water costs and water shortages in the long-term,” said Mayor Sean Wright.

Brackish water is salt water and fresh water mixed together and found in estuaries. The grant will help defray the total estimated cost of $62 million for the brackish water plant for which the City will continue to pursue other grant funds that could be obtained as soon as this summer. (See related articles, here and here).

“Antioch is leading statewide innovation on these clean water quality and local water control issues,” said City Manager Ron Bernal. “With so many high-profile cities and water agencies competing for these grant awards, I couldn’t be more pleased that our city’s innovation, creativity and leadership was recognized by the awards panel – making our city successful in securing Antioch’s fair share of these state funds.”

The highly competitive state grant from Prop. 1 Water Bond funds, which the voters approved in 2014, will help establish a local, water desalination facility within the city’s current water treatment plant. It will turn salty river water into six million gallons per day of clean drinking water, using a safe, secure, reverse osmosis treatment system and positioning the City as a local and regional clean water provider and statewide innovator.

“Establishing Antioch’s own local water plan allows our city to treat and store our own water locally, expanding our ability to be self-reliant, keep water costs down, and attract industries that need a reliable local water supply,” Wright added.

The clean water that is needed by industry will help attract businesses to locate in the city. While seawater reverse osmosis has a conversion rate of 35 percent to 40 percent, the conversion rate of brackish water could be more than 90 percent, with only 10 percent returning to the river. That will help maximize the use of the City’s rights to river water of as much as 16 million gallons per day.

“This is a tremendous economic development engine which allows Antioch to competitively attract and retain all manner of businesses and industries who need a reliable local water supply,” said Bernal. “Antioch is one of the few communities in the state able to offer this benefit to our residents and business stakeholders.”

Antioch’s Somersville Towne Center area designated a Federal Opportunity Zone for special investment

Wednesday, March 14th, 2018

Somersville Towne Center mall area in Antioch. Photo courtesy of ABC7 News.

Part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017

By Dan Borsuk

In a potential bid to receive federal Treasury Department aid for economically stagnating pockets of the county, Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors added the Somersville Towne Center mall area, Rodeo and tracts in the North Richmond area to the Federal Opportunity Zone program on Tuesday. Without hearing comments from the public, the supervisors unanimously voted to add the three census tracts to the county’s recommendation to the new Federal Opportunity Zone program.

Opportunity Zones are a new community development program established by Congress in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 to encourage long-term investments in low-income urban and rural communities nationwide. The program provides a tax incentive for investors to re-invest their unrealized capital gains into Opportunity Funds that are dedicated to investing into Opportunity Zones designated by the governors of every U.S. state and territory. (Read more about how the Opportunity Zones program works, as well as its history and community of supporters.)

Prior to the board’s action, the Contra Costa County Conservation and Development Department said the state had identified 11 tracts in the county that qualified for the Federal Opportunity Zone Program.  Those tracts either have poverty rates of more than 20 percent or median incomes below 80 percent of state or metropolitan areas.  Those areas include the cities of Richmond, San Pablo, Pittsburg, Concord, Antioch and the unincorporated areas of Bay Point and North Richmond.

The county had a deadline of Thursday, March 15 to submit its Opportunity Zone recommendation to the state.

However, there is the possibility the Federal Opportunity Zone Program may not kick into effect in either Contra Costa County or in the Golden State, said Amalia Cunningham of the Contra Costa County Conservation and Development Department.

“Private Investment Opportunity Zones would be eligible for lower federal capital gain tax,” Cunningham informed supervisors. “This is the only identified incentive.  There is no dedicated funding for the program nor has the state announced it will participate by lowering state capital gains tax for investment in Opportunity Zones.”

District 3 Supervisor Diane Burgis of Brentwood recommended that the area around the Somersville Towne Center in Antioch be added to the county Opportunity Zone Program based on a decline in economic activity in the area.

“We will be working with the city of Antioch on this proposal to include the Somersville area in the county Opportunity Zone proposal to the state,” said Cunningham.

The recommendation to add Rodeo came from District 5 Supervisor Federal Glover of Pittsburg and District 1 Supervisor John Gioia of Richmond recommended several tracts in North Richmond.

If the federal requirements are not enough to potentially squash the program, bureaucratic oversight might kill the program.  Cunningham told supervisors the county is under a tight deadline to submit an application, along with public comments.

“States have been given an abbreviated timeline from the federal government to submit their tracts.  The state’s draft list was made public on March 2 and local agencies comments are due by March 15,” she said.

Supervisor Mitchoff Faces June 5 Opponent

Supervisor Karen Mitchoff of Concord will face clinical psychologist Harmesh Kumar, 59, in a June 5 election for the District 4 board seat.

Kumar, who had unsuccessfully run for the Concord City Council in 2012 and recently withdrew plans to run for governor, said he wants to serve on the board of supervisors because “I want the people to win.”  He told the Contra Costa Herald the existing board of supervisors are “against the poor.”  He said Mitchoff and other supervisors represent the interests of the bureaucrats, not those of the people.

“I’m looking forward to a spirited debate on the issues facing District 4,” Mitchoff briefly told the Herald about her opponent and upcoming reelection.

Mitchoff has served on the board of supervisors since January 2011.

District 1 Supervisor John Gioia of Richmond, who is also up for reelection, but will not face an opponent since no one filed papers to run against the attorney on the filing deadline, Friday, March, 9.

Supervisors endorsed on a 5-0 consent action, state Senator Mike McGuire’s (D-North Bay) Senate Bill 833 that would create a red alert emergency system to issue and coordinate alerts following an evacuation order and requires the red alert system to incorporate a variety of notification resources.

Senator McGuire authored the bill in the aftermath of the massive wildfires that killed 40 persons, destroyed 6,000 houses and charred 170,000 acres in Lake, Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino counties.

Anti-Smoking Ordinance Passes

Supervisors also unanimously approved without public comment an ordinance banning smoking in approximately 10,000 dwelling units in unincorporated Contra Costa County.  The ordinance will go into effect July 1, 2019 when county health officials are expected to have completed an education program informing landlords and tenants about the anti-smoking law.

Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill and the Alameda County Emergency Operations Center were selected by the supervisors in a consent action item as alternative temporary county seats for Contra Costa County “in the event of war or enemy caused disaster or the imminence of such disasters.”

Allen Payton contributed to this report.

Antioch Police Chief says violent crime down 20%, calls for service up in first annual report

Wednesday, March 14th, 2018

Provided courtesy of APD.

Sworn staffing still in the mid-90’s

Antioch Police officers and staff participated in the Tip-A-Cop fundraiser at Chili’s. Photo courtesy of APD

By Allen Payton

During the March 13 Antioch City Council meeting, Police Chief Tammany Brooks gave his first annual report since assuming his position, last year. He offered some good news and some bad news.  The good news is from 2016 to 2017 violent crime in Antioch is down 20.1%. However, since most crimes are property crimes, and they were up 4%, overall Part I crimes were about the same having decreased only 0.1%, plateauing after a three-year decrease.

Larceny

Auto theft increased 24% from 862 incidents in 2016 to 1,072 incidents in 2017. But APD was able to recover 96% of the stolen vehicles in 2016 and 94.5% in 2017. Shoplifting dropped by 10%, but Other Larceny increased 23% from 460 incidents in 2016 to 565 in 2017 for total increase in larceny of 12%.

Burglary

More good news was in the residential burglary category, which continued to decrease from 651 incidents in 2015, to 568 in 2016 and then to 339 in 2017. But, business burglary increased to 250 in 2017 after a decrease of 211 to 194 between 2015 and 2016.

Call For Service & Response Times

Average dispatch call answering times have decreased, so has the time from call received to when the officer arrives on the scene by over a minute between 2016 and 2017. But calls for service for the Community Policing Bureau increased from 87,285 to 89,321, continuing a four-year trend from a base amount of 80,404 in 2014.

Sworn Officer Staffing

The year ended with the department having a total of 94 sworn police officers on the force out of 103 authorized, which is a total of five additional officers from the Measure C half-cent sales tax. (However, the chief’s report states there have been 12 officers added to the force, by continuing to use the council’s alternative figure of 82 officers which were on the force when Measure C passed in November 2013, as the base figure. That’s in spite of the fact 89 sworn officers the department had when the measure was placed on the ballot, and the mayor and council promised the voters an additional 22 officers if Measure C passed). As of the latest new hire in February, there are currently 96 sworn officers on the force. That places Antioch at the lowest level of police officers per 1,000 population of cities of similar size in the county, East and North Bay.

Volunteer Hours & Value

The Volunteers In Police Service (VIPS) provided 9,520.49 hours of community service for a total value of $270,953.15 and 16 Explorers provided over 2,400 hours of volunteer time.  The 56 volunteers in Animal Services provided 5,984 hours of service for a value of $170,304.64.

The council members thanked Chief Brooks for his report and the police officers standing in the back of the council chambers for their service, but none of them asked how he planned to hire the additional 15 officers needed to reach the 111 sworn officers promised from Measure C funds.

See the chief’s complete report, here: APD 2017 Annual Report-Final