Dear Editor:

As long as we citizens of Antioch have to lock our doors and windows, turn our alarms on, install motion lights, keep watch dogs and keep looking over our shoulders then the tax for police is a no-brainer.

Without the added police presence, our safety and that of our loved ones will be held in the hands of the criminal element- Those scum who prey on the unprotected.

I advocate for the 3/4% sales tax.

Richard Asadoorian

Antioch

Dear Editor:

This letter is written in response to an editorial written by Greg Enholm appearing in your March 2013 edition.

The CCCCD Board supports the expansion of services to East Contra Costa County.  After extensive review, the District purchased a 17 acre site in Brentwood to expand services to the area and the District fully intends to construct a campus on that 17-acre site when funding is available.  Despite what Mr. Enholm reports in his editorial, the Governing Board has not had a discussion about also purchasing a 110-acre site and constructing a campus in Brentwood.  The research we have conducted does not support such an action on the part of the District, and there is no plan for further consideration of such a project at this time.

The Board has discussed placing a District-wide facilities bond on the June 2014 ballot.  Details of what projects will be identified in that bond still need to be discussed and polling conducted to determine whether the District should place such a measure on the ballot in June or November of 2014.

Sincerely yours,

Sheila Grilli, Board President

John E. Marquez, Board Vice President

By Greg Enholm

Voters in East County as well as the entire County are likely to be able to vote for the construction of a Far East County 110-acre community college similar to Los Medanos College (LMC) or Diablo Valley College (DVC) and a related 17-acre satellite campus in the June 2014 election. On February 27, the Board of the Contra Costa Community College District directed the District’s staff to start the process for a new bond. County voters approved college bonds totaling $406 million in 2002 and 2006. The new buildings are very prominent on the LMC, DVC, and other campuses.

Now the months long process begins to decide exactly what will be funded. The elected five-member College Board will be meeting monthly to consider the specific projects. One project is to build a 17-acre satellite campus in southernmost Brentwood at Marsh Creek Road starting construction as early as 2015. Another is a 110-acre full community college for Far East County at a new eBART station. Start of construction of the college will depend on when the eBART station is to be built.

A 17-acre satellite campus in Brentwood will replace the small heavily-used Brentwood Center on Sand Creek Road. About 700 Antioch, 500 Oakley, 800 Brentwood, and hundreds of students from other communities take classes at the Brentwood Center, a converted grocery store opened in 2001, owned by the City of Brentwood. The new Brentwood Campus has been in the District’s planning process for years so construction could begin soon.

Having a new 110-acre community college located at a future eBART station will allow Far East County students who now go to DVC or LMC to complete their career training courses, associate degrees, certificates, or programs much closer to home. Students from high schools across the County would be able to attend classes in the evenings and on weekends without a car by using BART from stations near their homes. A new college will take decades to reach its full potential so additional bonds will be needed to fund construction of new buildings just as happened with DVC (opened in 1949) and LMC (opened in 1974).

Anyone who wants to comment on what should be included this June 2014 bond is encouraged to attend College Board meetings set to be held on Wednesday, March 27 at the District Office, 500 Court St, Martinez and on Wednesday, April 24 at the LMC Library, 2700 Leland Ave, Pittsburg. Comments can be emailed to the elected East County College Board Trustee at gbenholm2@hotmail.com. Detailed information about College Board meetings is available at http://www.4cd.edu/gb/agendas_minutes/default.aspx.

Projects for all 5 campuses including Contra Costa College in San Pablo and San Ramon Campus would be funded by the June 2014 bond.

Enholm is a DeVry University professor and represents Antioch as a Trustee on the Contra Costa Community College District Board. Send comments to gbenholm2@hotmail.com.

The Antioch City Council is busily debating how to increase revenues via a sales tax, parcel tax, a business license tax or a combination of taxes. City staff has been asked to determine the cost of returning to the pre-recession level of 126 sworn officers or a more optimal level of 144 officers and eliminating furlough days, which apply to all city employees except sworn police officers, as Concord did last week.

Apparently Concord was aware of the recent legislative analyst’s report stating that the state employee furlough policy, instituted under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been found to be fiscally unsound. The reason – state employees were using furlough days instead of vacation/annual leave days and now the state will have to pay them $3 billion for unused time off when they retire which is more than it would have paid if they hadn’t been furloughed at all.

Last September I asked Dawn Merchant, Antioch’s Finance Director, about city policy in regard to vacation, sick and comp time. She replied that vacation, sick and comp time roll over from year to year based upon the maximum accruals allowed by the Memorandum of Understanding for each bargaining unit. Vacation and comp time are paid to employees when they leave. Sick leave is only paid out to those employees with more than 10 years of service and is capped at 40% of total hours for a maximum of 20 hours. (The payouts are not used in calculating pension benefits.) Perhaps it’s time now for Antioch to take a look at how furlough days are impacting retirement payouts. Council should have that information before deciding decides whether to retain or eliminate them.

Speaking of poor policy decisions, four of the state’s 24 largest independent municipal retirement systems decided to send board members in May to the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems to be held at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort which has 5 swimming pools. However, after unfavorable publicity by California Watch, several Contra Costa County Employees Retirement Association (CCCERA) board members decided to cancel. When I called Monday to get a final head count I was told to leave a voice mail message on Marilyn’s phone line which I did but when I did not get a return call by the next day I called back was told Marilyn would not be in until Thursday and no one else could answer my question. Perhaps CCCERA needs to be reminded that access to information concerning the conduct of the peoples business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in the state and stalling the release of the
information is a disservice to the people. As of Thursday, March 21, I had not yet received a call back from Marilyn.

Also note, attorneys for the state Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) members are attempting to overturn pension reform initiatives approved by voters in San Diego (67%) and San Jose (70%) by filing complaints that officials failed to bargain in good faith on pension issues with unions representing city employees. Additionally, just this week federal officials charged Federico Buenrostro Jr, CEO of CalPERS from 2002-2008 and Alfred Villalobos, a former CalPERS board member and former vice mayor of Los Angeles with fraud for fabricating documents with a fake CalPERS logo to trick investment firm Apollo Global Mgt. into paying fees to Villalobos’ firms for helping sell securities.

By Barbara Zivica

On December 27th the newly sworn in City Council adopted an Urgency Ordinance amending the September 1, 2012 contract agreement with police officers and misc. employees in which the retirement benefit formulas for new hires was changed from 3% at age 50 for police to 3% at age 55 and the retirement benefit formula for misc. employees was changed from 2.7% at age 55 to 2% at age 62. Basically, what they did was restore the more generous pension benefits for new hires.

The reason it was called an “urgency ordinance“ was it had to become effective before January 1, 2013 when a voter approved state law would tie their hands. The new law mandates specific pension formulas for public employees (2.7% at age 55 for police officers and 2% at age 62 for other employee categories). They did, however, put a cap on lateral police hires. The chief can only hire five lateral officers at the 3% at age 50 retirement formula after which he’ll have to request more from Council. After 18 months, lateral hires will have to come in at the new 2.7% at 55 formula but could keep any prior accrued under old pension rules. Rookie hires would come in at the new state rate.

Council again took action on February 19th, upon hearing that City Manger Jim Jakel was planning to retire. They offered him a generous amendment to his contract if he stayed on until the end of December. (Jakel’s employment contract with the city is dated October 14, 2003). If he did so, during the last six months of the year his compensation would also include a monthly retention payment of $2,750 and a monthly deferred compensation payment of $3,533 which would be excluded from the calculation of final compensation for purposes of his PERS retirement formula. Currently his base salary is $16,719 a month.

Not surprisingly the Council has now asked staff to explore ways to increase revenues via a sales tax, a parcel tax or a business license tax, all of which, if mandated for a specific use, require 2/3 vote approval.
In 2010 Antioch voters rejected a half cent non specific sales tax measure which only needed a simple majority to pass but failed when 55% of voters rejected it. The ballot measure stated that the revenues were to be used to avoid further police layoffs (20 less cops on duty than two years before), fix potholes, maintain local streets and sidewalks, restore code enforcement and clean up abandoned property. Opponents were concerned because tax revenues would be deposited in the City’s general fund and could, therefore, be used for all legal governmental purposes.

As for current police staffing, according to police Chief Cantando as of February 21st, here’s the situation: The department is currently authorized for 102 positions and is projected to be at 90 filled positions as of March 11, 2013 with 12 vacancies. An academy student is already hired as a trainee and would fill an authorized position. Ten officers are off duty due to injury, eight of those are OJI (on the job injury) and two are off duty for medical conditions. Two additional officers are on light duty due to OJI injuries, two CSO’s have been hired, another starting on March 11th. Four trainees start the CCCSO academy on April lst. Numerous trainee, lateral and academy graduate candidates are in various stages of the hiring process.

Last fall, a week before the November election, in an online only editorial, I shared some concerns about many of the candidates running for Mayor and City Council.

One of my biggest concerns was time commitment – would the candidate have the time to meet the demands of the position? I had that concern about Wade Harper, since at that time he was a police Lieutenant in Tracy and worked swing shift, which means he wasn’t available in the afternoons and evenings.

However, in a surprise move, after being elected Mayor, Harper has taken an early retirement and is now devoting full time to his new elected position. This is the fourth time I was surprised by one of his moves. The first one was when he was the top vote-getter in the 2010 City Council election, the second was when he announced he was running for Mayor, last year and the third time when he won.

While in a General Law City like Antioch, which has a Council-Manager form of government, where the Mayor and Council Members are policy makers and the City Manager is the full-time professional that heads the staff, the Mayor isn’t a full-time job. It surely doesn’t pay a full-time salary.

Only one city in Contra Costa County has a full-time mayor with a matching salary and that’s Richmond. But they’re a Charter City, as are the four largest cities in the Bay Area with full-time, elected Mayors – San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and Berkeley.

So, it wasn’t necessary for Harper to make the move he did and commit to working full-time for us. But, perhaps at this time in our city’s history, with the growing crime problem we face, as well as the lack of economic development and local, well-paying jobs, it will be a good thing.

It just shouldn’t become a precedent for future mayors, unless and until Antioch becomes a Charter City, which requires a vote of the people.

I wish good luck and Godspeed to Mayor Harper in his full-time efforts on our behalf.

Does the City of Antioch have its priorities backwards? In the City Manager’s June 26, 2012 report to Council, where he laments the loss in property tax revenues which affected the city’s ability to maintain the level of services provided to the public, he lists 21 future challenges that will enrich the city and make Antioch “an even more enjoyable place to live, work and play“. First on his list is “continue to develop Executive Management Team.” Re-establish code enforcement function at some level is number 11 and last on his list is “support community efforts to pursue enhanced funding for law enforcement” which is the only reference to the police department on his list.

We’d all like to see the Police Department at optimum staffing (more police, less crime) but he better be thinking of neighborhood watch – not another sales tax measure or parcel tax increase which the Mayor and council seem to be lobbying the public for.

If so, I have news for them. We’re broke. We’ve been hit with higher sewer, water, power, food prices, new special assessments, e.g., two Antioch Unified School District bond measures and we live in a state that has the highest sales tax, personal income tax and the second highest gas tax in the nation. Seems to me, that lately government at all levels (federal, state and local) is becoming accustomed to asking voters to pay more whenever their funds run short as a result of fiscal mismanagement.

Folks, it wasn’t just declining property tax revenues which got us in this mess. It was a serious of egregious decisions on the part of the City Manager and City Councils.

The first bad decision to lay off 20 non-sworn Community Service Officers who performed a variety of duties which allowed sworn police officers more time on the street.

The second was to let the number of sworn police officers fall to a new low, resulting through the end of 2012 with violent crime up 30.6% from 2011, total crime up 24%, burglaries and aggravated assaults up and arrests down 13.6%.

The final straw occurred in December, after the swearing in of Mayor Harper and the new city council members. That’s when, upon the urging of Police Chief Allan Cantando and City Manager Jim Jakel, council amended Article IX – of the former agreement with Antioch Police Officers Association (APOA) which was to terminate on August 31, 2016. That agreement, which required they pay a gradual increased portion of their retirement benefits, gave officers a 6% salary increase effective the first pay period after March 1, 2012, a 3% increase in March 2013 , a 4% hike in September 2013, two additional days off a year and modified the 3% at age 50 to 3% at 55 (3-year average) for new hires.

Why then, knowing the city had $59 million of debt for under funded retirement benefits, did they restore the more lucrative 3% at 50 pension formula for veteran police officer hires. They had to know that it was not necessary to do so in order to compete for lateral recruits because the following cities had adopted a 3% at 55 retirement formula: Tracy (Wade Harper’s former employer), Benicia, Brentwood, Concord, Fairfield, Hercules, Martinez, Pittsburg, San Ramon, and Walnut Creek.

The good news is that property tax values are on the rise and, as of March 11, 2013, the police department is projected to be at 90 filled positions, with 12 vacancies, two CSO’s have been hired and another is starting in March, four trainee candidates are starting at the CCCSO academy on April lst and there are numerous trainee, lateral and academy graduate candidates in various stages of the hiring process.

Tuesday, February 12th was the best of nights; it was the worst of nights. The bad news was the grim crime numbers in Chief Cantando’s annual ‘State of the Antioch Police’ address.

The good news was what one Council member described as the Chief’s refreshingly, brutal honesty. If you like getting an unvarnished story this is a guy who gives “just the facts, ma’am.”

We are blessed that the Chief is a great communicator, straight up guy, and Antioch resident, who as a parent and homeowner, lives and breathes our daily dilemmas.

The Council, as well, is to be commended for their unity of resolve. Any ideological differences were cast aside as Mayor Harper, Vice Mayor Rocha and Counselors Gary Agopian, Tony Tiscareno and Monica Wilson all committed to fully supporting the Chief.

It is going to take everyone on deck, from top city brass to everyday citizens, to turn this ship around. To their credit this Council acutely realizes crime is the City’s pivotal issue. Safety, after all, consumes Antioch’s conversation at the office water cooler, the beauty salon and the family dining table.

Some positive underscored in that we seemingly have hit bottom on police staffing with a handful of recruits gestating. It was heartening to also hear that deteriorating response time is finally flattening out.

Other news, though, was chilling. We have 88 sworn officers, one more than in 1995 when we had 28,000 less citizens. The Chief said that our previous high water mark of 126 officers is minimum baseline, with 144 ideal. Remember, we currently have no school community resource officers, gang prevention, narcotic, or traffic control units. Community service officers are just trickling back and code enforcement is bare minimum.

You can’t make filet mignon out of hamburger, try as our dedicated officers do. Antioch violent crime is up 30.6% from last year; burglaries seem epidemic; our crime rate doubles that of neighboring Pittsburg; and, as perspective, Antioch High had four lockdowns last year due to shootings within proximity.

Obviously, we can’t afford to do nothing because, like it or not, we pay a price everyday; in daily anxiety, looking over our shoulders as we walk the dog or go to our cars in the store parking lot; worrying when we get back home from work if our house is undisturbed; fearing vacation absence; and seeing depreciated real estate values.

The Chief, our brave men and women in blue, and our City Council, need and welcome your ideas and your unwavering support. Please come to a Town Hall Meeting on crime at Beede Auditorium at 6 p.m. on Thursday, February 28^th.

We are a resilient lot. Antioch can and will reclaim public safety.

Walter Ruehlig, Antioch