By Barbara Zivica

This week I received an unexpected mailer from City Manager Steve Duran and Police Chief Allan Cantando, printed on expensive stock. It was entitled City of Antioch 2014-2015 Measure C Status Report.

The 2013 Measure C ballot measure clearly stated that Measure C revenues would go into the General Fund and could be used to fund all essential city services including increased police staffing. Revenues from Measure O, also passed by voters in November 2014 , were also deposited into the General Fund, available for any lawful purpose.

The Measure C Status Report lists “Facts At A Glance” and “What Has Been Done With the Money So Far” along with personal messages from both the City Manger and Police Chief. Let’s look at some of the statements:

“Collection of Measure C funds started on April 1, 2014” and “Sunsets in 2021.”

The funds are “Expected to generate $5.7 million in General Fund revenue annually” but “Collections have exceeded expectations in fiscal year 2014/15,” with the City receiving “$1.093M more than budgeted.”

The “Facts At A Glance” states 100% of the money “has been allocated by the City Council to Police and Code Enforcement.”

Back in June 2013, the police department had 87 full-time sworn officers, although they were authorized to hire 102. Mayor Wade Harper, who assumed the role of Mayor on December 6, 2012, promised voters to increase the force by 22 sworn officers.

That’s why I have difficulty comprehending why, with 102 authorized sworn positions, we still only have 88 positions filled with two per diem Command Staff, although several Police Academy recruits are expected to join the department soon. That’s only three more sworn officers than the City had in 1998.

According to the Police Chief, since November 2011, 28 sworn police officers have been hired but 12 officers retired, six resigned, and four were terminated, leaving a gain of only six officers.

Measure C funds have also been used to purchase equipment for Police and Code Enforcement. The city recently used General Fund reserves to amend the Police Department budget in order to purchase, install, program, maintain and train on the necessary hardware, software and radio equipment in order to participate in the East Bay Regional Communications System Authority (EBRCSA).

Regrettably, although each agency using the system can choose whether to install an encryption key, our city council chose to do so making current police scanners obsolete which has considerably irritated a number of residents.

Dear Editor,

A thank you to all for helping The Delta Advocacy Foundation by supporting our Charity Roundup at the Roddy Ranch held October 3, 2015.

The Sponsors were:

Blackhawk – Nunn Partners, Paradise Skate and Roller Rink, The Libbey Family, Stephanie Anello, The Green Family, Heritage Bank/Becky Manning, Scott Bergerhouse, Roddy Cattle Co., Roddy Ranch Racing, John Jimno, Umpqua Bank, John Ramirez, Painting by Stefan, K2GC Inc./Ken Turnage Construction, Houghton International, Contra Costa Electric, The Agopian Family in Memory of Gary, Twin Rivers Insurance/Twin Rivers Marine Insurance, and Patricia Bristow.

The In-Kind Sponsors were:

The Dinelli and Reeves Families, Antioch Lions Club, Far West Sanitation, Roddy Ranch Golf Club, Republic Services, Tom Hartrick and Crew, Fast Signs, Rev. Roger Kuehn, Umpqua Bank, Markstein Beverages, Boy Scout Troop 450, Brentwood Future Farmers of America, Antioch Herald, Contra Costa Fair Grounds, Walaine Hankins., C + R Memorabilia, Rivertown Impressions, Kids N Cribs, Divine Voices of Deer Valley High School, Frigard Chiropractic, Gexpro, Cummins Pacific LLC, Electrorep Inc., G and S Farms, and Mark Dwelley.

Our very special thanks to Jack and Donna Roddy for their generous support and to you, the people who attended this year’s Charity Roundup and braved the hurricane winds. Because of your generous support, The Delta Advocacy Foundation will continue to support local charitable, educational and cultural causes in Eastern Contra Costa County.

Nancy J. Green

Treasurer

By Barbara Zivica

Did you see the Notice of Intent to Circulate Petition filed by Antioch residents Lamar Thorpe, LaTanya Harmon and Patrice L. Guillory of Antioch, published on October 24th and entitled “Antioch Coalition Against the Expansion of Gambling?”

Currently, the City only allows two card rooms to exist within the City at one time and requires persons who wish to operate a card room to obtain a license, based on an application, which the City Council may approve or reject. Only one card room, The 19th Hole, is currently operating in Antioch.

The initiative, which seeks to limit card rooms within the city, allowing only those card rooms that existed on September 1, 2015 to operate, would mandate that Council deny a license application if it finds the applicant has committed a felony, lacks good moral character, has submitted false information in support of the application, or the card room would be incompatible with surrounding land uses.

It would also change the regulations for licensed card rooms, including limiting the number of player-dealer games to half the card room’s tables, limit the number of players at a table to ten (except for poker tournaments) and require Antioch voter approval be obtained for any card room expansion or new card room (licenses granted to established businesses only) and prohibit card rooms from being located within 1,000 feet of another card room or of any school, hospital, medical clinic, alcohol or drug recovery center, mental/social care facility, park, library or place of worship.

Don’t be fooled by this initiative, which the aforementioned committee members are asking to be put on the ballot. It’s a back door ploy. The sponsor of the committee is the California Grand Casino in Pacheco, seeking to limit competition, and the committee treasurer is David Fried from Tiberon.

Dear Editor:

Last Tuesday, (October 13) when the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to pursue a study on Community Choice Energy (CCE), I was proud to state that my city – San Pablo — has already chosen to allow our residents and businesses to receive 50% or more renewable clean energy over dirty energy. It’s rewarding to know that I am lowering greenhouse gas emissions and also by me paying my utility bill it contributes to building the 10.5 MW Solar farm located in Richmond which is on a brownfield site and will be built by local union workers. It provides more local green jobs as well as clean air and health.

I hope the folks in Conta Costa will tell their leaders to support CCE so our supervisors can proceed without delay.

Lynette Robinson

San Pablo

By Barbara Zivica

Senator Steve Glazer (D-Orinda) recently announced new staff members: Antioch Mayor Wade Harper, who’s up for a vote in November, 2016, Lafayette School District Board Member Teresa Gerringer, Pittsburg City Councilman Ben Johnson, and Elizabeth Patten of Oakland a former intern in Glazer’s 2015 Senate campaign. She will act as Constituent Services Coordinator.

I voted for Steve Glazer because I admired his public call for an end to BART strikes, which caused havoc to commuters and was critical of the system’s unions and management. I also give him kudos for having a number of Republicans on his staff. I criticize him now only because I think he should have done a better vetting job before putting Mayor Harper on his staff.

Perhaps Glazer is unaware that Antioch residents tried to recall the controversial mayor who campaigned on zero tolerance for crime and hiring 22 more police officers, which along with the 103 previously authorized by Council would have brought the force to a total of 125. However, despite passage of Measure C, a half cent sales tax which he said the city would dedicate to acquiring more police, as well as code enforcement personnel, the police force today, according to City Manager Duran’s monthly report on October 1, consists of 87 full-time sworn employees, four of which are in various stages of the field training program, five whom have medical conditions preventing them from full duty, and several police trainees currently attending the 78th Police Academy.

Dear Editor:

CCA. Before long, everyone will know what these letters mean — just like we do PG&E. Community CHOICE Aggregation or CCE, Community CHOICE Energy. Lousy name, but a very good thing. The emphasis is on the word CHOICE. It’s the choice that residents, businesses, and schools in California have of 50% or more renewable energy instead of PG&E’s 28%. In case you’re keeping track of the numbers, that’s the amount of renewable energy the new California law mandates . . . by 2030. But, why wait?

Two Bay Area counties already have a CCA: Marin and Sonoma. Also a few cities: Richmond, El Cerrito, San Pablo and Benicia. CCA is available without putting solar on the roof, or buying anything. CCA provides solar and wind energy through the cables that we already have. In Sonoma county, most of the renewable energy is geothermal -– from the geysers. The renewable energy from a CCA does not include nuclear nor fossil fuels like natural gas. Certainly not coal. And you can always choose PG&E instead.

This past week, the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors unanimously declared their interest in CCA. Nearly every county’s joining the trend: San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, Yolo, Mendocino, Humboldt, Santa Cruz, San Benito, Monterey, Los Angeles and San Diego.

CCA’s mean thousands of green jobs and an environmentally sustainable revenue stream for the economy. Lousy name, but a very good thing.

Carol Weed

Walnut Creek

Dear Editor:

Antioch’s Mayor, Wade Harper, is a failure. Antioch is no safer since his election. Let’s take a look at the facts.

His claimed primary, election campaign platform was to improve Antioch’s public safety. He boasted “The City of Antioch will be a safer city on my watch” and “Stopping crime now starts with Police Lieutenant Wade Harper.” His campaign crowed “How about we elect a City Councilmember who has experience fighting crime – well beyond talking about it.”

He also promised “more police” and “less crime” in his overzealous support for a “yes” vote on the Measure C tax. What a farce that also has turned out to be. He was one of its main proponents for its passage. Same Police, same crime results since.

Antioch’s Police manpower hasn’t really been increased, even with Mayor Wade Harper at the helm, with the approximate same number (90 currently) of sworn Officers, as before. Antioch’s crime rate hasn’t really been reduced, it’s just been an illusionary misleading ‘dog and pony’ show when publicly discussed by him and others. Mayor Harper should’ve been put to a more successful recall effort. Unfortunately it failed due to technical problems by the proponents, from the start.

Where are the 20 plus “more” Officers that were promised? And where is the “less crime” he promised? Fooled you, didn’t he? Antioch’s documented crime rate is 46% more than California’s average crime rate, and 49% more than the National crime rate average, as last reported.

Antioch’s 2014 total police reported person crimes proves it’s increased by an additional 30% more since his election. And Antioch’s 2014 total police reported property crimes proves it’s doubled (by an additional 101% more) during his Council tenure.

Let’s face it, Antioch’s Mayor Wade Harper is a failure and needs to be replaced. We can do better without him. His boasting promises to our community have been hollow and full of self-promoting emptiness that has cost Antioch overall.

Ralph A. Hernandez

Antioch

By Barbara Zivica

According to the Chief of Police’s recent report to the City Council, the most recent Part 1 violent crime numbers have dropped 11.5% and Part 1 property crime have dropped 12.4%. Combined, total Part 1 crime dropped 12.3% while total arrests are up 19.9%.

Before patting ourselves on the back, let’s look at one of the main reasons for the change in current stats compared to stats from last year. That reason is the passage of Proposition 47 which converts many nonviolent offenses, such as drug and property offenses from felonies to misdemeanors. The measure included exceptions for offenses involving more than $950 and criminals with records involving violence or sex offenses, and allowed for people currently incarcerated for crimes covered by the measure to petition for re-sentencing.

Among the most prominent arguments against the law was that possession of the date-rape drug would be punished as a misdemeanor rather than a felony and the $950 cap would downgrade the theft of most guns to a misdemeanor.

It was estimated that the measure would affect about 40,000 felony convictions per year, which would be reduced from felonies to misdemeanors, representing about one-fifth of annual convictions in California.

Opponents said that if Prop. 47, drafted as a way to help resolve Gov. Jerry Brown’s over crowded jails problem, passed it “would officially end California’s tough on crime era. Between the drug deals I see occurring around town when I go to the store and the shop lifting I see occurring in the stores, employees being unable to interfere if the loss is under $950, it’s obvious that any statistics claiming a drop in property crime statistics is due to Prop. 47, not better policing.

Incidentally, October is Crime Prevention Month.