Joint Statement by Bay Area Health Officers to prevent spreading COVID-19 among family and friends

Bay Area health officials remind residents that many commonly celebrated Halloween and Día de Los Muertos activities carry high risk for spreading COVID-19. Focusing on decorations, limiting activities to the people you live with, and virtual costume parties or contests will help keep our communities safe this season, especially our children. Together, we all need to do as much as we can to protect ourselves and those around us.

For instance, trick-or-treating is a high-risk activity, because it increases contact with people outside of your household who may not be as careful about COVID-19 prevention. Parties are high-risk because mixing among people who don’t live in the same home introduces more opportunities for the virus to pass from one person to another. Bay Area contact tracing has shown that gathering and mixing are key contributors to infection.

These holidays are no different than the rest of the year when it comes to reducing the spread of COVID-19. Stay home if you feel sick or have come into close contact with someone who has COVID-19; wear a face covering whenever you leave home; and keep your distance from others (even relatives) who don’t live in your household, and remember that being outside is safer than being inside, especially in combination with face covering and keeping your distance. Consider using a themed cloth mask, as a costume mask is not a substitute. Avoid wearing a costume mask over a protective cloth mask because it can be dangerous if the costume mask makes it hard to breathe.

Contra Costa County residents are reminded that local and State Health Officer Orders are still in effect. Halloween gatherings, Día de los Muertos celebrations, events or parties with non-household members are not permitted unless they are conducted in compliance with local and State Health Orders.

Local health officials highly recommend community members participate in lower risk activities to celebrate Halloween and Día de Los Muertos this year:

LOWER RISK: Stay home, keep it small

• Celebrating Halloween traditions like carving pumpkins or a scavenger hunt-style trick-or-treat search with your household members in your home.
• Visiting an outdoor pumpkin patch, while wearing a mask and maintaining distance from others.
• Carving or decorating pumpkins outside, at least 6 feet apart while wearing masks, with a very small group of neighbors or friends. Fewer people with more distance is safer.
• Having a virtual costume contest.
• Dressing up your house, apartment, living space, yard or car with Halloween decoration or decorating homes with images and objects to honor deceased loved ones.
• Preparing traditional family recipes with members of your household.
• Playing music in your home that your deceased loved ones enjoyed.
• Making and decorating masks or making an altar for the deceased.
• Participating in vehicle-based gatherings that comply with state and local guidance like drive-in movies and drive-through attractions, or car/bike parades where participants do not leave their vehicles.
• Avoid driving in areas where there are many pedestrians.
• Spectators should watch from their homes or yards and not gather with people they do not live with.

MODERATE RISK: If you must

• Participating in one-way trick-or-treating where individually wrapped goodie bags are lined up for families to grab and go while continuing to physically distance (such as at the end of a driveway or at the edge of a yard).
• Wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds before and after preparing the bags.
• Ensure everyone is wearing an appropriate face covering and maintaining a physical distance from others.
• Everyone participating should bring hand sanitizer and use it frequently AND wash their hands immediately after coming home.
• Candy shouldn’t be eaten while outside the home because that would require both removing the face mask and touching wrappers.
• Having a very small group, outdoor, open-air costume parade or movie night where people are distanced more than 6 feet apart and are wearing masks. Fewer people with more distance is safer.
• Enjoying themed outdoor dining that complies with state and local guidance or takeout.

HIGHER RISK: Please avoid

• Participating in traditional trick-or-treating where treats are handed to children who go door-to-door. Although this activity is outdoors, it is higher risk because it brings multiple people from different households together.
• Traveling to a rural fall festival that is not in your community if you live in an area with community spread of COVID-19. Doing so can bring COVID-19 into the area and threaten the residents’ lives.
• If trick-or-treating is occurring in your neighborhood and you are at home and do not want to be disturbed, you may want to post a sign or turn off your porch light.

VERY HIGH RISK: Not permitted by State and Local Orders

• Attending a crowded party held indoors or outdoors. Large gatherings, even if they are outdoors, are high risk for spreading COVID-19 and are associated with many cases throughout the Bay Area.
• Sharing, eating, drinking, speaking loudly or singing amongst others outside of your household.
• Haunted houses or indoor mazes
• Having trunk-or-treat where treats are handed out from trunks of cars lined up in large parking lots.

To further protect yourself and your loved ones, be sure to monitor yourself during the 14 days after these holidays and pay particular attention from days 3 – 7 after the holidays when you are most likely to develop symptoms. If you don’t feel well or you learn someone you had close contact with tested positive, get tested immediately and stay home until your appointment and while you wait for your results.

To learn more about symptoms and testing, visit cchealth.org/coronavirus.

 

Fun, Educational Annual Event Taken Off Concord Training Grounds and Into Residents Homes to Ensure COVID-19 Safety

WHEN: Saturday, Oct. 31, beginning at 8 a.m.

WHERE: Online at www.cccfpd.org/annual-open-house

WHAT: Contra Costa County Fire Protection District (Con Fire) hosts its Annual Fire Prevention Open House Saturday with a wide array of educational and potentially lifesaving presentations for every member of the family.

This year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are taking our normally live and all-day event off the Concord Training Grounds and into resident’s homes using a variety of information-packed videos.

Virtual open house content is available to media for reporting purposes ahead of public release. All open house content will be posted to the Con Fire website beginning at 6 a.m. Saturday.

We’ll appreciate media sharing this unique, COVID-19 inspired virtual event with Bay Area audiences using the attached flyer and linked video content.

ADDITIONAL INFO: Open house video here: http://bit.ly/2020OpenHouseWelcomeVideo

Images of past years’ attendees available here: http://bit.ly/2019OpenHousePics

CONTACT: Steve Hill, PIO, Contra Costa County Fire Protection District, (925) 532-6512

About Contra Costa County Fire Protection District (Con Fire) — A recognized fire service leader — Con Fire provides fire and emergency medical services to more than a million people across its 304 square-mile District area, and through mutual aid, in and around the 20 cities and unincorporated communities of Contra Costa County, California. With few exceptions, county emergency ambulance transport services are provided by Con Fire through its unique sub-contractor Alliance model. In 2019, the District responded to nearly 78,000 fire and EMS emergencies and dispatched some 95,000 ambulances, providing expert medical care on more than 74,000 ambulance transports. The District, with 26 fire stations and more than 400 employees, is dedicated to preserving life, property and the environment.

Contra Costa Health Services’ Public Health Nursing Car Seat Project will help parents and caregivers keep their children as safe as possible in the car thanks to a $83,000 grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS).

The one-year grant from Oct. 1, 2020 to Sept. 30, 2021 funds a car seat education program that encourages the proper installation and use of child safety seats.

The grant funds the following activities:

• One-on-one/virtual appointments to inspect and install car seats.
• Child safety seat education classes for parents and caregivers.
• Child safety seats at no-cost to nursing case management clients and low-income families following education classes.
• Promote safety seat recycling and importance of discarding used and expired car seats
• Work with community partners to promote child passenger safety education.

“The Public Health Nursing Program in Contra Costa County serves vulnerable, low-income families who are impacted daily by health inequities,” said Program Manager Michelle Rivero, Program. “Our families struggle with meeting the basic needs of the children. Rent, food, clothing all become priorities over car seats, and many of our families use old, expired car seats. This program is a much-needed resource to help keep children safe.”

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 46% of car seats are misused.

“Car seats save lives,” OTS Director Barbara Rooney said. “Keeping children safe in a vehicle is as important as ever, and funding for car seat programs play a vital role in ensuring the proper use of child safety seats.”

Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. To find the right car seat for your child, click here.

For more information contact Rivero at (925) 608-5119 or Child Passenger Safety Technician, Jessica Recinos, at (925) 532-2152.

Allen Payton contributed to this report.

Dr. Sean Wright

Re-election as Mayor of Antioch

Office Held: Elected Mayor of Antioch in 2016

Occupation: Chiropractor

As your Mayor, I am committed to making Antioch a better place to live. Despite our challenges, we are a community of people who care for one another.

Most important is that you and your family remain safe/healthy. Here are some things I’ve been working on toward that goal:

• Added 24 more police officers (for a total of 20) and beefed-up code enforcement. Crime is down. We opened a new Family Justice Center to support victims of domestic violence and elderly abuse. We’re working on homelessness solutions.
• We’ve begun the critical journey toward identifying and eliminating racial bias in our community. Black lives matter and we need to do better. We also need body cameras on every police officer.
• COVID-19 – We’ve sewn thousands of masks with the help of volunteers. We have a testing site in Antioch, ramped-up hospital beds at Kaiser/Sutter Delta, and increased 911 emergency/fire services. We’re helping unemployed individuals and small business owners get critical information; increased free and low-cost food supplies for seniors and families; and passed a moratorium on rental evictions.
• We’ve preserved thousands of acres into permanent open space – protecting our hillsides/limiting development. And approved plans for a “desalinization plant” to ensure we have adequate water supply.

Antioch Police Officers, 911 emergency personnel, our legislators, county officials, education leaders and others support my re-election. Your vote means a great deal to me. Please call me anytime if you or your family need help.

Antioch Mayor Sean Wright

drseankwright@gmail.com

mayorseanwright.com

(925) 550-8026

 

 

By Antioch Police Department

Since October 1st, your APD officers have recovered 33 illegally possessed firearms, the majority of which have been from convicted felons, or individuals already on parole or probation. Most of these seizures have occurred from traffic stops , where an individual in the vehicle was determined to be on parole or probation, or there was some other cause that allowed officers to search the vehicle. The rest of these seizures occurred during search warrant operations conducted by our Investigations Bureau, in conjunction with our Special Operations and Problem Oriented Policing (“POP”) Units.

Our violent crime rate for 2020 is trending downward from previous years, -39% since 2012 and -10% since last year. We attribute this in large part to increased staffing (120 strong and growing!) With a bolstered police force, our officers have more time to conduct proactive enforcement contacts and ongoing investigations.

Another HUGE factor on our side is the community we serve – Antioch STANDS UP in the face of crime, and works with us to keep things safe. There are a number of ways you can help us protect our city:

If you see something suspicious, you can call our Dispatch at (925) 778-2441 or 9-1-1 if you think it’s an emergency. You can also text 9-1-1 from a cellphone if you are unable to call. Some things you might be asked about include the location of occurrence, along with descriptions of persons, vehicles, and license plates.

If you have a tip regarding drug dealing or an ongoing crime problem, you can contact our POP Team by emailing popteam@antiochca.gov. If you prefer to remain anonymous, you can text a tip to 274637 and include the keyword ANTIOCH in your text. All text tips are encrypted and cannot be traced to the sender, unless you choose to give us your contact information.

If you would like to report a traffic problem in your neighborhood (including speeding vehicles, stop sign runners, etc.) click on this link www.antiochca.gov/police/traffic-unit and fill out the requested information.

If you would like to report abandoned vehicles on your street, including those with expired registration or illegally parked, you can leave a message on our abandoned autos hotline (925) 779-6981, or send them an email at parkingenforcement@antiochca.gov.

Working together , we can keep Antioch a safe place to live, work and play!

#antiochcapolice #antiochstrong  #apdpopteam #apdtrafficunit

 

Supporter also uses communist thinking and class warfare to gather support

By Allen Payton, Publisher & Editor

The evil of xenophobia raised its ugly head in Antioch, this week, as a supporter of Measure T, the Let Antioch Voters Decide: The Sand Creek Area Protection Initiative, which is the effort by out of town environmentalists and their supporters in our city, to downzone private property for the purpose of making it permanent open space that the parks district can buy on the cheap, claims she’s of the understanding that the family that owns the Zeka Ranch “are not U.S. citizens”.

In addition, clear communist thinking straight from the first of the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto is being used as the reason to pass the initiative.

In an email to the editor originally asking about advertising for the Yes on T campaign from Antioch resident Lucy Meinhardt, Tuesday night, she wrote, “I support Measure T because I believe the good of the community outweighs the property owner’s preferences in this case. I have enjoyed for many years the views when hiking the trails south of Contra Loma to the views of the former Higgins Ranch. To see houses there would hurt me to the core.”

The first plank of the Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx reads, “Abolition of private property in land and application of all rents of land to public purpose.” That’s exactly what she and the supporters of Measure T are attempting to do to the Zeka Ranch and three nearby properties, for a total of 877 homes, which is all that could have been affected by the initiative.

Worse, Meinhardt wrote, “Though the owner owns a house in Antioch, I understand they are not U.S. citizens.”

Louisa Zee Kao, the head of the Zeka Group, Inc. and Zeka Ranch, LLC, who has been fighting for her rights to do with the land as the voters said three times she could, has been a U.S. citizen for over 40 years having emigrated with her late husband and her two children from Hong Kong in the 1970’s. Her grandchildren, for whom she’s working to leave a legacy, were all born in the U.S., as well.

Plus, even foreign residents have rights, and it doesn’t matter who owns the property, because those rights are tied to the property.

Meinhardt went on to write, “I cherish this land for all of us, not a wealthy few who would help the owners reap huge profits. I hope the land will eventually be annexed to the East Bay Regional Parks that surround it.”

So, she admits she wants the privately owned land, purchased by the Zeka Group in 2000, with the first payment made in 1989, downzoned and devalued by over 97% so it can be annexed to and become part of the publicly owned park district land.

Meinhardt uses class warfare which is based in jealousy and envy to keep an immigrant family from increasing their wealth and leaving a legacy for future generations, while providing housing that Antioch doesn’t currently have, even though we the people voted  three times to allow for the new homes to be built in the Sand Creek area.

In a further email sent today, after being called out for her xenophobia, Meinhardt attempted to apologize.

“Apologies. I had heard this rumor. I usually fact check. Do any Kao’s live in Antioch? The Zeka company is based in Burlingame. I am not xenophobic. Both Zeka and Richfield are out of town firms and are investment real estate firms. The rumor took them a bit further out of town. We will never agree on land use with respect to this land. I am sure there will be lawsuits over the initiative when it passes.”

However, Meinhardt was being xenophobic, by definition, according to the Merriam Webster dictionary: “fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign.”

As for the lawsuits she mentions possibly happening, perhaps the supporters will sue the city and the landowners, but they won’t win because the property owners have rights. Plus, both Zeka – which is a family owned, boutique developer – and adjacent property owner Richfield/Oak Hill Park have already won the two major rulings in their lawsuits against both the city and environmentalists who are behind Measure T.

And again, it doesn’t matter where a property owner is from, where they live or if they’re U.S. citizens, or not. They and their property both have rights.

Devaluing property is in legal terms considered a taking.

How would Meinhardt and other Measure T supporters like it if that happened to something they owned and have it taken from them? Oh, we will just devalue it and then buy it at the lower price for the “good of the community”. I doubt they would appreciate that at all.

But at least she’s honest about what they’re attempting to do: downzoning and devaluing the privately owned Zeka Ranch and three other properties in the Sand Creek area, so the park district can buy it for pennies on the dollar, then annex into the public park land. That’s exactly what the environmentalists tried to get Louisa Kao to do three years ago, so that other developers could use her land as mitigation property for open space, for the to build their subdivisions. She declined the ridiculous offer.

Fortunately, the downzoning and devaluation can’t and won’t happen thanks to Gov. Newsom signing SB330 into law last year which bans cities from downzoning residential land by either council action or initiative.

That’s why Measure T is moot and will have no effect even if it does pass.

In fact, the homes will be approved and built. Because if the city council doesn’t approve the homes planned for the Zeka Ranch or any of the other properties currently zoned residential in Antioch within five hearings on each project, SB330 states the city will, at a minimum be fined $10,000 per housing unit, costing us taxpayers millions of dollars.

So, vote no on Measure T. Don’t take their land and save our tax dollars. It’s unfair and unAmerican.

For more details and to get the facts before you vote, visit antiochherald.com/no-on-measure-t.

On Tuesday, Antioch Police Chief T Brooks posted his first video message, known as a vlog, on the department’s Facebook page sharing good news about the increase in staffing to 120 sworn and reductions in Part 1 crimes.

Following is the transcript of his vlog:

“Hey, everyone! T Brooks here, YOUR Chief of Police in the City of Antioch.  During the past few weeks, I’ve had several community members contacting me in an effort to educate themselves about the police department.  And as I reflect back on several of these conversations, I realized they revolved around three specific topics:

• Police officer staffing
• Crime statistics, and
• Response times to calls for service.

So, I figured, ‘Hey! Maybe I can share this information with our loyal social media fan base? I mean, we do have more than 23,000 followers, and I’m sure many of you have these same questions and would love to hear the answers directly from me.’

Now in the past, when I wanted to share information with you, I’d type out a post for people to read.  And for those of you who know me, you know I can get pretty wordy with my posts.  I mean well and try to be as thorough and transparent as possible. But lately, I’ve seen a lot of people making videos to communicate their messages to the public. And I thought, ‘What the heck?  I’ll give that a try.’ So, here we go:

But before I begin, I want to establish a benchmark for the context of the conversation, and provide a little background on what helped us get to where we are now:

The year is 2012, and Antioch suffered its most crime ridden year in recent recorded history.  With more than 1,000 violent crimes reported, Antioch had the unfortunate distinction of being named the fourth most dangerous city in California.  Staffing at the police department was severely impacted due to the recession, and we were grossly understaffed.  At that time we didn’t have the resources or ability to do anything proactive to prevent crimes from occurring.  In fact, we struggled just to respond in a timely manner AFTER a crime occurred.

Our community, fed up with feeling unsafe, made a bold move.  In 2013, Antioch residents put their trust in our elected officials and police department when they overwhelmingly passed Measure C, a half-cent sales tax that, in part, had a goal of increasing police staffing to reduce crime and improve 911 emergency response times.  Then in 2018, with the expiration of Measure C looming, Antioch residents once again chose to tax themselves an additional half-cent, and approved Measure W.  And while Measure W had a broader focus on how funds would be used, public safety remained one of the identified priorities.

In short, seven years ago our community opted to invest in public safety. And we here at the Antioch Police Department took the trust you put in us very seriously. So, what’s the ultimate outcome of this investment?

Police Officer Staffing:

• Prior to the recession, Antioch PD was fully staffed with 126 police officers. But then reduced budgets cut our staffing to a low of 78 officers in 2012.  Thanks to Measure C and now Measure W, we currently have 120 police officers working to keep you and your families safe!  That’s a 54% increase in police officers – putting the Antioch Police Department staffing at a level we haven’t seen in almost a decade.

Response Times:

• In Antioch, response times are measured from the moment a dispatcher picks up the phone, to the moment an officer arrives on scene.  Back in 2012, the average response time to an emergency call for service reached a dismal 11 minutes and 4 seconds.  Today, our average response time is down to 7 minutes and 35 seconds – which means we’re getting to those most in need of help 31% faster than before!
• But not every call for service we go to is an emergency.  In fact, emergency calls make up only about 9% of all the calls we handle.  Approximately 48% of calls are categorized as urgent, 34% are considered routine, and 10% are informational.  Response times to these calls also saw a significant decrease.  On average, we’re now getting to urgent calls 41% faster, routine calls 77% faster, and informational calls a whopping 91% faster!

Crime Stats:

• As I mentioned earlier, the recession adversely impacted our community as well as our police department.  With the budget cuts we experienced, both police officer and non-sworn positions were defunded and crime surged in Antioch.  There were 1068 violent crimes, and 4757 property crimes reported in 2012.  But as our staffing grew and we were able to work proactively as well as reactively, as our response times to calls decreased and we were able to provide a higher level of service, and as we were now able to engage the community in ways that make our community safer, we are now in a much better place than we were before.  By the end of 2019, Antioch recorded its seventh consecutive year of declining Part I crime, with violent crime down 39% from 2012 levels, and property crime down 32%.  And this downward trend is continuing through September of 2020, with violent crime currently 10% lower than last year, and property crime 9% lower – which is definitely great news!

Now please don’t confuse my happiness at the fact we might see our eighth straight year of declining crime as being content.  Actually, I’m far from it.  We still have a lot of work to do to reduce crime in our community even further.  And I definitely don’t want to lose ground and go back to crime levels we saw in the past.  But with your continued support, along with the hard work and dedication of the amazing men and women of the Antioch Police Department, I believe we’ll continue making progress, and Antioch will be a safer place to live, work, and play.

So, there you have it, my first attempt at a vlog (as my kids called it).  Let me know what you think.  If you liked the video and want to see more – I can do that.  If not, at least I tried.  I hope you found this information helpful, and thank you for allowing me to be your chief of police!  It truly is My honor!

 

Julio Jesse Mendez

Running for Antioch Mayor

Conga, Software Sales Engineer

Top Issues

Priority 1: Respond with urgency and action to the COVID crisis and its local impact on homelessness, job loss, and the soon to follow fiscal pressures we must face.

Priority 2: Begin the process of creating a self-sustaining economic engine that will be the City of Antioch. Prioritize local cooperative infrastructure projects around renewable energy, digital decentralized finance, and remote work.

Priority 3: Civic morality, accountability and transparency. Especially around general fund expenditures, education, and community development. Open the door to more direct community engagement and inclusion in the civic process.

Top Accomplishments

• First Antioch home at the age of 27. Sold to a local working family without bidding up the price, 3 years later.
• Top performer accolades in almost every company I have joined in the past 10 years, as well as recently recognized “Values Champion” by my current company.
• Life is short, willing to put career and likability on the line to speak up for what is right; and sacrifice personal comforts, health, and privileges to “be the change”; so that we might all live and work a bit better.

JulioJesse4Mayor.com