On split vote Antioch Council chooses City Park for state grant funds over Rivertown Square project
Postpones, will study resuming security services for downtown
“This is one thing that unites people that don’t usually get together.” – resident Frank Sterling about support for the proposed downtown park
“We do not have $250,000 to spend to maintain this park. If we do, every other park is going to have a reduced level of maintenance.” – Mayor Ron Bernal
Freitas envisions a hotel with conference center on the former Beede Lumber Yard site
By Allen D. Payton
In spite of impassioned comments from a broad spectrum of residents in favor of using state funds for a new park on the site of the former Beede Lumber Yard in downtown, to their chagrin, during the regular meeting on Tuesday, August 11, 2026, the Antioch City Council voted 4-1 to apply for the grant to benefit City Park. Only District 2 Councilman Louie Rocha voted against the motion. Most of the public speakers spoke in favor of the proposed, new downtown park, including representatives of two groups of residents, one wearing blue shirts with the message, “Rivertown Square Yes!” printed on them and the other from Rising Juntos wearing green shirts, and others who aren’t usually allied on the same side of major issues. (See related article)
During Council deliberations on the matter, both Councilmembers Tamisha Torres-Walker, in whose District 1 both sites are located, and Don Freitas hemmed and hawed in their willingness to support the Rivertown Square project before ultimately voting to pursue the funds for City Park, instead.
Public Comments
Before the vote on item #8 on the agenda, members of the public spoke mainly in favor of using the state grant funds for the Rivertown Square.
“I’ve watched cities that have grown their downtowns…and I think, ‘why not us? Why not Antioch?’” said one downtown resident. “Downtown once had a green space at Barbara Price Marina Park and we were promised a replacement.”
“Please choose the Yard,” she added.
“This is our neighborhood. I have been fighting for The Yard…this is one of the longest fights I’ve been doing,” said resident Frank Sterling. “This is one thing that unites people that don’t usually get together. I feel like you all should be bold. I’m in favor of The Yard being our downtown…community space.”
Resident Michael Simpson, wearing one of the blue shirts compared it to Concord’s Todos Santos Plaza, Oakley’s Civic Center and Brentwood’s downtown City Park, as well as Pittsburg’s Old Town park.
“We should…create something for future generations,” he stated.
Barbara Price Marina Park was six acres, and the Beede Lumber Lot is just under two acres, one third the size, so, the maintenance costs will be less, another resident pointed out.
“We have waited long enough. This community has spoken. Please don’t let maintenance be the issue. Please honor the commitment. Please apply for the grant to be at the Rivertown Square,” she concluded.
“Antioch shouldn’t be the city people drive through but the city people drive to,” another resident wearing one of the blue shirts in support of the Rivertown Square stated.
Former Planning Commissioner Kerry Motts, also wearing a blue shirt in support of the project for which his sister, former councilwoman and current District 1 council candidate, Joy Motts has helped lead the effort, said, it “would provide for enhanced economic vitality of Rivertown. This has been a stated goal…for 40 years.”
A leader of Rising Juntos East spoke “in support of developing the Beed Lumber Yard park.”
“Please vote yes for the families of north Antioch,” she added.
“Children and families need safe spaces to thrive,” another representative of Rising Juntos said in support of the Rivertown Square. “We envision not just a park but a cultural hub.”
“Why is it taking so long?” she asked. “Making the lot a park would make the downtown more walkable and enjoyable. It’s right across the street from the Senior Center. They could enjoy it.”
Another member of Rising Juntos said, “City Park needs investment and our community absolutely needs to see it improved. But one park should not be sacrificed at the expense of another.”
Alexander Broom, Vice Chair of the Antioch Parks and Recreation Commission, said, “I think it should be Beede Lumber Yard or bust. I believe we should put all of our eggs in this basket.
District 4 Council candidate and local homeless advocate Andrew Becker spoke last with a completely different idea saying, “My concern is that the intent of Prop. 4 is to…preserve or create open space for individuals and I keep hearing, tonight it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. Forty years ago, homes were built along Cavallo (Road). There’s still no parks within a-half a mile.”
Council Discussion & Decision for City Park
During council discussion Acting Community Development Director Steve Scudero was asked by Mayor Ron Bernal about the vacant downtown lot, “How is that property zoned?”
“Mixed use which allows for commercial residential and public spaces,” Scudero responded.
“If we wanted to sell that property as a surplus property…” Bernal began.
“We would have to make it available to an affordable housing builder…giving a sixty-day notice of availability… before selling the property,” Scudero stated.
District 2 Councilman Louie Rocha spoke next saying, “Both parks are important. I believe City Park does need investment. But we have a downtown area that many of us…for enrichment would see where people could come together and bring some economic development.”
“It’s unfortunate we have to pick just one. It looks like both projects meet the criteria for the process,” he continued. “Whatever we decide tonight won’t determine what would happen to the other.”
“Probably the one thing I’ve been most impressed with…over the years I’ve heard about The Yard, the Town Square,” Rocha stated. “I’m inclined to support The Yard because of the engagement that’s bringing people together. This may be four years down the road even if we get the funding.”
“I understand the value of bringing people together. I could support both. But I’m going to support the Beede Lumber Yard because of all the engagement,” he added. “I don’t think there’ll be a problem with getting the people behind you.”
District 4 Councilwoman Monica Wilson said, “Both are good. But I want to put one in that’s most competitive and going to get the dollars.”
Alex Gibbs, Grants Director of Townsend Public Affairs, the City’s consultant on the grant process, said, “There will be a lengthy process…that will include site visits from the state…most likely in April next year. You’re looking at really a difference of five or six points. There are fewer people living near the Yard…given the location of the lot near the river. But the state takes that into consideration. That’s the reality we’re living in. I’m confident that either case…we can write a very competitive application. The only thing you’re going to lose out on is the number of people living in poverty and nearby park land.”
Wilson asked about the Cavallo Road area saying, “That space we don’t own. It’s not a park,” referring to an empty, privately-owned lot on the southeast corner of Cavallo Road and E. 18th Street.
“I’m not aware of any land we own in that area,” Scudero stated.
District 1 Councilwoman Tamisha Torres-Walker, participating remotely from a resort and spa in Santa Cruz, then said, “I keep saying, don’t put housing there. I also don’t agree that housing should be the priority for this site.” She then said, “I keep hearing, it’s been 15 years they’ve had the commitment to replace the Barbara Price park that they lost. That seems to be a theme I continue to hear…that people have been waiting…for something.”
“I definitely want us to award whatever can bring revenue to the City of Antioch and I’m hearing the Beede Lumber Yard could bring revenue and even cover its maintenance costs,” Torres-Walker continued. “This is potentially an $8 million grant. We could submit one application or two applications.”
“Anything is possible,” said Recreation Department Director Shahad Wright. “Whatever money we have…we’ll make sure the contingency fund will be enough to cover.”
“It will be a city park not a neighborhood park so it would include restrooms,” Torres-Walker stated.
“That will be part of the design process,” Wright responded.
“If Beede Lumber lot is selected tonight, there will be a design phase, a community engagement phase, restrooms. What would be the follow up for City Park?” she asked.
“I will pivot and figure out how to fix the rest of the parks in the city,” Wright stated. “You have up to four years to spend the grant funds.”
The councilwoman then mentioned “downtown business owners” dealing with “parking issues and unhoused folks who actually live along the waterfront” and giving enough time for the City to deal with those issues.
District 3 Councilman Don Freitas said, “We’ve talked a lot about history. Some of us have intimate knowledge of history. I want to go back to 1978 and 1979. I was the Executive Director of the Antioch Chamber of Commerce and most of our members were in downtown. Because at that time it was still one of the economic hubs of the community.”
“I told them, ‘the downtown could survive if we had residents moving into the downtown and…sustained economic development,’” he continued.
“We needed to improve the circulation pattern in the downtown area. As mayor…from 2000-2008, whe number one project was to finally connect A Street to Second Street,” Freitas stated. “That was probably one of my greatest achievements as mayor. Because downtown finally had circulation.”
“So, on the issue of the Beede Lumber Yard…and this has been an issue for over 40 years, my vision for Beede Lumber was that we need to make downtown a destination, and we needed to generate revenue,” he explained. “I’ve seen many people say on social media that Freitas wants to build apartments. Freitas has never been for building apartments” on the vacant lot.
“My vision was to build a Sheraton Inn like in Concord…that Antioch would own the property and reach out to owners of hotels…two to three stories with a rooftop garden,” Freitas shared. “I wanted to have a situation where we would have a 35-year lease. I never wanted to sell that property…and each and every year we would generate revenue.”
“We have more than 118,000 people in this town. There is no hotel in this town for us to offer conferences or seminars or anything. So, part of my argument was, let’s build one,” he continued. “If you’re there for two to three days, what are you going to do? You’re going to walk up the street. We could have a jazz lounge. We would have restaurants there.”
“You say you’ve been disappointed for 15 years. I’ve been disappointed for over 50 to 60 years,” Freitas exclaimed. “You say this is going to produce revenue. To do that you’d have to be using this facility every day. That’s not going to happen. Excluding the 4th of July, you’re going to get a couple hundred people. Very few people come out of District 3 to the downtown because there’s nothing there for them.”
“We have Williamson (Park). What’s the problem? There’s no parking,” he asked and answered. “If Beede goes through, the problem is going to be parking.”
“I have seen your schematics. Very interesting. But it’s not going to sustain itself,” Freitas stated. “But you’ve done a very good job coming together and advocating. I think I can count the votes. I think we’re going to probably engage Beede. But be under no delusion. The best bet is not Beede. The best bet in my opinion is City Park.”
“But I’m going to challenge every single one of you here. There’s going to be community meetings. You’ve said, ‘we can raise money through non-profits…through other means.’ Don’t wait,” he said. “That’s been the problem with this city. I challenge you, start figuring out how to pay for this on a long-term basis.”
“We are in a deficit. We’ve reduced it dramatically,” Freitas pointed out. “Your organization is great…you have another part of the job. Don’t abandon us. Stay with us. I challenge you. Where are all these other monies going to come in? Because the city doesn’t have it.”
Mayor Ron Bernal spoke next reiterating Freitas’ last point saying, “The Council chose to remove this project from the Capital Improvement process because we didn’t have the funds for maintenance. If this goes through, we still won’t have the money for maintenance. We do not have $250,000 to spend to maintain this park. If we do, every other park is going to have a reduced level of maintenance.”
“We have deferred maintenance coming out of our ears,” he stated. “I am not in favor of adding another expense…as much as people would love to have this park built in downtown,” he continued.
“We’re talking about one point being the difference in getting this funding. We don’t have five points,” Bernal explained. “And that (City) park won’t be improved and we won’t have Beede, either.”
“The new areas are fully paying for the maintenance of their parks. The downtown area parks, the General Fund is paying for their maintenance,” he continued.
“We do need to improve our downtown…have places for people to gather. I’m for all of that,” Bernal said. “This is an example of everyone coming together. But we don’t have the…wiggle room in this process. So, I’m going to be in favor of City Park.”
Torres-Walker than said, “I didn’t hear that we only had to submit one application. I heard we could do two applications. Was that correct?”
Gibbs of Townsend said, “That is correct. There is no limit to the number of applications the City can submit.”
“Would the Council be against submitting two?” she asked.
“I would be opposed to that,” Freitas said. “I think Townsend has made the case not to do that.”
“I think there would be a staff issue in running two processes. How well would you be able to run two processes?” Bernal asked.
“It’s a heavy lift,” Director Wright said. “We’re already understaffed and two facilities down. How well can we do in this small timeframe?”
Freitas asked, “What is in the best interest of Antioch?” then said, “I’m going to move that we do apply for this grant for City Park.”
Bernal seconded the motion.
Torres-Walker than stated, “For Townsend said, ‘this takes a while to bring this process around.’ I’ve been for bringing grants to the City. Do you see there will be opportunities in the future…can there be a commitment to pursue grant funding for parks?”
“I can commit to purse the best grant application as possible…I commit to not leaving any stone unturned…be it state, federal or other,” Gibbs said.
The motion then passed on a vote of 4-1 with Rocha voting against.
In response, one member of the audience could be heard yelling out, “There are elections coming up.”
Postpones Resuming Downtown Security Services Until September to Study Issue
Two residents spoke during public comments on the item, #9 on the agenda, local homeless advocate and District 4 Council candidate Andrew Becker said, “I managed a private security company…for years. I think…the biggest question is…what’s very alarming is staff puts out the report that includes the security logs. But there’s no results. ‘We as staff are doing a good job…that the work should continue in downtown.’ It’s staff’s responsibility to monitor and maintain contracts.”
“I went through all of the security logs,” he continued. “It speaks to a high volume of emergency calls…I think you see four or five very low instances in the hundreds of logs put out. The contract is for City-owned parking lots. If that’s the case, then why are the photos…of properties the City doesn’t own in downtown? Or pictures of properties that aren’t even in downtown….a shopping center in a newer development? Where are these guards and who are we paying and what is the relationship of this company to the City?”
Keith Butler, CEO and Founder of Elite Defense Security Solutions said he had, “ties to prior law enforcement. I’m a retired law enforcement officer of 18 years.”
“Without getting into the particulars of the current company…it’s not who’s providing the security, it’s what does the security look like. You need to look at what that security can do,” he continued.
“I have to agree with the previous speaker,” Butler stated. “There were a lot of items on there that don’t look to be parking lots.”
He then offered to help the City draft a new RFQ (request for quote).
Council Discussion & Decision to Postpone After Meeting with Downtown Businesses, City Staff
During Council discussion, Freitas spoke first saying, “I think that when we initially did this, we did focus on the City-owned property. If we want to put together a work group…we didn’t receive any input from the Police Department…Code Enforcement, the Antioch Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Antioch Association. We need to ask questions…be proactive rather than reactive.”
Rocha then said, “One key strategy identified…is to act as a visible deterrent…and properly report incidents to the Antioch Police Department. When you read the comments from the survey…the key strategy is to be visible when people don’t even know they’re there. Maybe this is misleading the way the key was written.”
“I think the merchants and restaurant owners are wanting to have a relationship…that didn’t happen with this particular vender,” he continued. “I do think we need to have community members meet together. I think there needs to be dialogue. I’m not prepared to approve this contract.”
Wilson then said, “We didn’t include any measurables…around patrol hours…how to communicate with the police. I think if we have this committee we figure out the performance measures. That’s the problem with the RFQ. I think we really missed it on this one.”
Finance Director Dawn Merchant, serving in the role of acting city manager for the meeting (or Acting Acting City Manager she jokingly said) then shared, “One of the difficulties I do recall being discussed was how can the City pay for extra security for businesses in downtown when they don’t for another challenged area in the City. That’s why it was focused on the City-owned parking lots. That’s how this evolved.”
Torres-Walker mentioned, “the businesses saying, ‘we need more support from the City.’ The police saying, ‘we can’t just commit officers to downtown’. We couldn’t justify doing it for the businesses. We asked if there were other City-owned parking lots throughout the city.”
“What is being often overlooked is…it just provided patrol for City-owned parking lots in downtown not the businesses,” she continued. “When I looked at this report…at least one property outlined in here that is way over by Deer Valley. How did they end up all the way over in District 4?”
“The survey was completed by seven respondents…out of fifty or more in downtown,” Torres-Walker stated. “You have 71% of the respondents said they would support the City continuing security services in downtown. It is very telling. The majority of businesses that responded felt like security services were needed for weekdays and the evenings and special events.”
“Asked how often they see security services downtown it was pretty spread out. You never had ‘never or occasionally.’ Although you had one outlier say they had seen the security company several times a week,” the councilwoman shared.
She then mentioned the only cannabis retail location in downtown and that, “they’re supposed to have 24-hour armed security.”
“I do want to add patrolling for downtown businesses,” Torres-Walker stated. “Most municipalities have a downtown overlay district where the businesses pay for additional police patrols” and mentioned using “CSO’s (Community Service Officers) driving around in marked cars.”
She concluded by suggesting forming a “police district in the waterfront.”
“This could be a collaborative effort of the City and downtown businesses that they pay for this,” Freitas said. “I think it’s in their best interest. I just think we should try to get them together…with the City Attorney. It’s an idea to move forward. Because we don’t have the services right now, the question to the police department is, are there other personnel that can be used such as VIPS. I think we need to be a little creative.”
Rocha agreed with using CSO’s.
Antioch Police Captain Matt Koch jokingly said, “In the words of Director Wright, ‘anything is possible.’”
“We’ve already increased our presence over there with officers and CSO’s during all hours of the day and night that are scheduled,” he stated. “I went 42 days before and 42 days after and there’s been a 23% increase in calls for service to the police department. It’s about three-and-a-half to four-and-a-half calls for service per day. I think having them there…with the lights flashing is a deterrence. It is a great service and a force multiplier for us.”
“There are some residences besides the businesses that are affected there,” Koch continued. “At my request they were taking pictures and providing them to the department.
“So, you see the security as a benefit overall,” Bernal asked.
“Overall, yes,” Koch responded.
“As they’re driving different routes between the parking lots there’s nothing that precludes them from making calls if they see something,” Bernal said.
“Yes,” Koch stated.
“I would like to see something done in the month of August,” Bernal stated. “I just think we need to do something quickly.”
“I do think we need to pursue another request for qualifications,” Torres-Walker added.
There will be a DAA meeting on the 19th at El Campanil Theatre,” the mayor stated. Torres-Walker said she will be attending that meeting.
Rocha said he will speak with the Chamber of Commerce. Bernal suggested Freitas do so, as well.
The council members agreed to have representatives from the Antioch Police Department, Code Enforcement meet and downtown business owners to discuss the needs for private security.
Watch council meeting video.
the attachments to this post:
City Park thumbs up new sign Rivertown Square thumbs down
Security for Downtown Parking Lots map
