I am amazed at the glaring differences between our city and the city five miles west. That city’s government and chamber of commerce is innovative and progressive.

The amount of events and activities for the citizens of Pittsburg is amazing, considering the current financial crises that we are experiencing. Subscribe to Pittsburg’s website and be enlightened.

Pittsburg manages using ideas, opportunities, significant citizen input (not ignored) and action to improve its environment.  The community is a bit smaller than Antioch but it is much more aggressive on improvements embracing change. If you attend a function in that city you will experience the impact of how they manage by asking any active citizen; and they are active. I applaud their Council and Chamber  for the work being done. Good job, we should all give them a hand!

The city of Antioch might think of working closer with Pittsburg’s management to discover how they make things happen while we remain stagnant and regressive. At least regressive in respect to city-sponsored, supportive events and our Chamber’s active campaigns to attract more business; example, the Wal-Mart expansion fiasco. Where is our management’s push for improvements?

I realize that our budget is not something that will not be simply solved overnight or perhaps for years. What I have not seen is any action to raise money other than a failed sales tax measure. We are now applying event charges on non-profits, which is a slap in their face since their events supplant city-sponsored withdrawals. From my perspective when funds are short we head backwards.

Why not increase events with reasonable cost for attendance, instead of taxing our citizens? That would be  giving our citizens something for their money and offer more community participation. Too much cost to manage? Ever think of volunteers or the Chamber of Commerce ? The folks to the west are good at that! 

Fred Hoskins

A contingent of Antioch leaders, representing our school, city council, business and community sectors, recently returned from a grant-funded trip to Nashville, Tennessee to see first-hand a city that has come together full-bore for career-based education. Our delegation, which included Superintendent of Schools Dr. Donald Gill and Mayor Jim Davis, toured some of Nashville’s academies and heard details of a successful blueprint from a Mayor who walks the reform talk. He stressed that a city really has three main priorities; education, safety and economic vitality and that engaging youth can affect all three. Good schools keep kids off the streets. They help real estate prices. They attract businesses, industry and the well to do.

The take away was two-fold; we realized that in many ways we are already doing things in Antioch that are ahead of the pack regionally and nationally. We also realized, though, that we can push yet further and broader. Nashville’s model is intriguing and provocative. They have a ‘wall to wall’ concept. There’s is a city-wide alliance of school, council and business partners. They offer no opt out as every student has to elect a pathway. Lest you consider that restricting, consider that this City-County of 600,000 offers an astonishing 49 academy choices. There is, then, literally a seat at the table for every student. The proof, as always, is in the pudding. Strikingly, Nashville test scores, graduation rates, college admissions and attendance all confirm a positive direction.

Obviously, Antioch is not the size of Nashville. We have unique needs and different funding mechanisms than they. Nevertheless, the trip stirred ideas. We here have, of course, come along ways on our current path of what is now called linked education and was, in previous incarnations, called vocational education, career tech and alternate pathways. We have medical, law and criminal justice, performing arts, EDGE (Environmental Design for Green Energy), business and space and science academies.

The exciting thing with these theme-based schools is that we have gone beyond just throwing into the elective mix some vocational class. Firstly, the curriculum at our Academies is rigorous. We are University of California, A-G requirement, driven. Our goal is to prepare all of our students to have the option of either transitioning to college or to entering workforce training.

Also, our curriculum is integrated. For example, a Law and Criminal Justice Academy student might study “To Kill a Mockingbird” in literature; write legal briefs or essays in composition; discuss or debate constitutional law in history; and use algebraic formulas to determine a driver’s speed by the brake marks.

Originally, our intention was to build out to where 50% of our student body could elect academies. Nashville has us thinking, though. It’s a heady venture we’ve been on with the sky the limit. Attendance is up at our academies; the Dozier Libbey Medical Academy hit 820 API last year; and the Delta Performing Arts Academy shot up an incredible 78 points. An emphasis on unstinting expectations, targeted interests and smaller learning environments is working. Of course, this is part of an overall reform movement which emphasizes parent involvement, teacher morale, aggressive staff recruitment, standardized curriculum objectives, early-on interventions, best teaching practices, teacher mentoring, pacing guides and periodic data-driven assessments,

Rigor, relevance and relationship is, after all, the paradigm of the future. This is the information age and critical thinking and collaboration skills are crucial objectives if we are to not lose out to our global competitors. We have been losing ground for decades as places like South Korea, Singapore and Finland outpace us. Thirty percent of our kids drop out. We score 17th for industrialized nations in math-science scores and ninth in overall college readiness. For those lamenting the good old days, remember that even in the ’30s and ’40s 70% of our kids didn’t graduate; in the ’60s our educational crisis bannered ‘Why Johnny Can’t Read?’; in the ’90s a Presidential Commission called us a ‘Nation at Risk’. The problems have been there; it is just higher stakes now.

This is certainly a race we can’t afford to lose – not in Antioch and not in America. The agricultural and factory-based educational system developed in the Henry Ford days, where 10-15% of the students (generally white, male and middle class) were educated for business leadership, the rest for basic citizenship, won’t work in this global, tech-driven economy. It takes a new seed to raise a new crop. Linked education has shown that it can play a major role in that break-through promise. As a unified community, committed to our youth, we can make this happen. Antioch can have parents knocking on the door to get in to our community. We can blossom into a true destination point.

Walter Ruehlig

Vice President, AUSD Board of Trustees

We all know that our State is in crisis and that our families are being affected by the impacts on education and unemployment.  I had a choice to make with my term on the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors ending this year.  I could play it safe, sit tight, and run for reelection for a job that has no term limits and much more stability.  After all who is crazy enough to want to go to Sacramento?  However, I felt the stakes were too high to shrug my shoulders and give up on changes ever being made in our State government.  As a high school teacher, a mother of four daughters, and a grandmother of two, I believe that I can help bring accountability, collaboration, and our priorities to Sacramento.

I look at what I accomplished in our County government and it encourages me that significant change is possible. I came into office facing a 2.6 billion dollar unfunded liability for retiree health care and no funding plan in place. Many people thought it would be impossible to meet this challenge, however, working with our employees, we reduced our liability by more than half and have a complete funding plan in place. Employee health benefits have been significantly reduced, and retiree health coverage is no longer available to new hires.

Another goal I had was to increase accountability within the county to help break down the silo culture that has been persistent for years.  I discovered that many department directors reported directly to the Board, in effect having five “bosses” and had not had performance reviews for years.  Hiring our new County Administrator and then bringing all of our department directors under his direction has begun the shift to an integrated and much more accountable organization.

Serving for the last several years on the Contra Costa Transportation Authority has allowed me to vote for funding for the widening of Highway 4 and eBART.  I plan to continue my involvement in transportation in Sacramento to see these projects to completion.

Job creation and stability is another looming challenge we face.  I have spoken to many small business owners about the needs they have in this difficult economy and will continue to work with them through regular small business round tables to resolve their concerns.   In the County I created a student job program for our emancipating foster youth to give them work experience and to launch them towards self sufficiency. I also formed a center for Economic Opportunity in the most disadvantaged portion of my district that brings a number of different resources directly into the community.

Finally, I am committed to stop cuts to education and to bring leadership to rebuilding education in our State.  As a credentialed teacher, a parent of a high school senior, and the mother of a young teacher, I see the full range of challenges that we must address in education.  I have a passion to see children learn and succeed in life. I believe our children deserve more access to preschool, highly trained administrators, top quality teachers, and local school boards who have more control over finances.

I don’t think there are any quick fixes and I don’t underestimate the challenges of trying to impact the entrenched systems of Sacramento.  I do know that I want to take what I have learned and work hard to represent you and your family.  I would appreciate your vote on Tuesday.

Susan Bonilla

Candidate for California State Assembly, AD-11

www.susanbonilla.com

Starting a newspaper in this day and age and in this economy is not easy. But we feel that Antioch, a thriving city of more than 100,000 people, deserves its own newspaper that is of, for and about Antioch.

Because it is a financial challenge to launch a newspaper, we are starting off online initially. But our plan is to mail a newspaper to every residence and business in Antioch, first as a monthly and then twice a month. Whether we are able to achieve that goal will depend on support from advertisers and readers who support those advertisers.

In any case, we are here now online and plan to be around to chronicle the ups, downs, highs, lows and everything in between that goes on in this exciting, always interesting city. With a limited staff, we will depend on your help to do that. Please send us letters to the editor, news tips, articles, article ideas, photos, press releases, etc. If something interesting is going on in your neighborhood, school, church, workplace, club and elsewhere, let us and your fellow residents know. We’re here for you.

Send your items to editor@antiochherald.com.

Dave Roberts
Editor

The following is the ballot pamphlet argument supporting the proposed half-cent sales tax increase in Antioch.

Antioch is struggling to maintain the services that protect our quality of life and keep our city safe. State takeaways of local money, combined with declining home values and decreased consumer spending have seriously impacted the city’s main sources of revenue – property and sales taxes.

The city continues to look at other ways to increase revenue, including working with public employees to obtain further voluntary pay and benefit concessions. However, this financial crisis is severe. In the last two years the city has cut $13 million and still faces a $4 million deficit. Twenty-five percent of the workforce has been eliminated, remaining staff has voluntarily cut their pay and benefits by $2.8 million and city hall is closed on Fridays.

Positions at the police department are left unfilled and there are 20 fewer police officers on duty than there were two years ago.

If we are to preserve our safe neighborhoods, additional funding is needed to prevent further police layoffs and to maintain police patrols and 911 response times.

Other city services that contribute to our quality of life also need additional funding, including fixing potholes and maintaining local streets and sidewalks and enforcing city codes to clean up abandoned properties.

This measure will provide a stable source of funding for these vital services and not one dollar can be taken by the state.

This measure also has strong accountability provisions, including an annual audit and a citizen oversight committee, to ensure the money is being spent as promised. And the measure will expire in eight years.

This measure will bring stable revenue that cannot be taken away by the state, has strong citizen oversight of spending and an annual audit. In order to maintain our police services and emergency response times and keep our community safe, please vote Yes.

The following is the ballot pamphlet argument against the proposed half-cent sales tax increase in Antioch.

Vote NO to increasing Antioch sales tax beyond the current record levels.

The tax dollars would NOT be dedicated to police services and public safety, the number one priority among citizens, but go to the general fund. The tax would not add police but “hopefully” allow a break even next year. It will NOT solve the crisis.

The proposed oversight is not binding and cannot legally be modified at a later time.

While all Californians have seen many increases in service fees and taxes, Antioch leaders have:

• Raised water rates a total of 60 percent
• Raised sewer rates a total of 30 percent
• Allowed garbage rates to climb 26 percent this year.

Logic and history tells us a local sales tax would negatively impact Antioch businesses and still not produce the income projected. It’s wrong to ask for more tax dollars at a time when so many families and businesses are struggling financially.

Economic development, business retention, reducing the city business permit process, constant budget reviews, pension reforms and contracting out more city services will help solve our fiscal crisis.

Vote NO to this tax increase. It is the wrong solution at the wrong time.

Ruehlig was misrepresented by CCT

I haven’t written heretofore about my wife’s Area 5 County Board of Education campaign precisely because Cynthia Ruehlig is a resolutely independent personality standing on her own merits. I am compelled, though, to answer a denigrating misfact. Cynthia was accused in an October 20^th Times editorial of “misrepresenting” herself as a “Nonprofit Administrator.” Cynthia’s designation is transparent. She completed a two-year study in Nonprofit Management at the California State University East Bay and filed her credential with the County Elections Office.

My wife proudly acknowledged herself as a due diligence clerk (County Child Protective Services) in a June, 2010 letter to the editor; as a working class employee on her website, www.cynthiaruehlig.com, and as a clerk in her Times recorded interview. Why tabloid journalism?

The editorial conveniently ignores the election manual, which states a candidate may elect occupation or vocation. Webster defines vocation as a calling, pursuit, passion. Cynthia pointedly defines her vocation. Former computer teacher, businesswoman, church webmaster, five-time foster parent and co-founder of the Antioch Music Foundation, Cynthia writes grants resulting in thousands of dollars for school instruments, field trips and community concerts.

Unfazed by neither fear nor favor, Cynthia is owed an apology by the Times interviewer, Daniel Borenstein.

Walter Ruehlig