Home Antioch Antioch Residents Need to Look Foward, Not Backwards With Police

Antioch Residents Need to Look Foward, Not Backwards With Police

by ECT

Picture 100

City Leaders in Antioch offered the community a perfect opportunity last night to express concerns and express ideas of how to improve police staffing levels while reducing crime. For the most part, the community missed the boat to share ideas and instead the evening turned into a long night of complaining and expressed frustrations.

If any revenue enhancement is to be successful, residents need to stop looking to the past and focus on the future.

Yes, Antioch residents are frustrated, annoyed, tired of crime, passionate about fixing this, but in this type of setting, the focus has to be on solutions instead of worrying about past incidents, or what the police are not doing.

Over the past year, the community has heard all the complaining, trust me, the city gets it. Let’s change the tone to focus on the future and stop worrying about the past—the past is very ugly, but the future can be bright and lets head that way.

The focus should be about the future and how do you get to your final destination.  The focus early in this campaign is what residents will support and what they won’t support as a potential tax.

Last night was not all bad and those sharing ideas should be applauded. Although some people griped, there were some good points and suggestions that are worthy of me repeating.

The one idea that seemed to stick was a potential $250 tax on rental property as a way to raise between $2 to $2.5 million annual for the police department—it’s also a way to make rental owners accountable.  Still, that isn’t enough revenue raised to get staffing up to 126-officers.

Antioch is currently at 88 sworn officers (same level as 1995) for a City of 108,000.  Police Chief Allan Cantando would prefer to bring the staffing levels up to 144-officers, however, that would need a revenue generating solution to bring in nearly $7 million to the department.

Another idea was allow Antioch to have “open carry”  while others wanted the city to add more programs, address truancy, work with youngsters and simply be more proactive with the community.

Here are some statements from last night, although I did not get everyone names and I apologize for any misspellings.

“If you don’t have the money you don’t have the people,” said Mary Lopez.

One resident stated he would only support a measure that is 2/3 and dedicated only to police. He stated his distrust for the city council and doesn’t trust that money in the general fund.

“I don’t feel safe; three people were shot dead… two more drive byes. We have to turn it around and have to have a safe community,” said Sandra Kelly. She supported a tax on rentals and urges the police department to bring back code enforcement quickly.

“250 on rental is fair. I invite you to come to my street and you can pick out 10 of the 12 rentals, 2 look superb and taken care of. If we had an ordinance or tax, maybe it will get rid of the lowlifes in our town,” said Marty Fernandez.

Another resident offered full support of a tax on rentals stating “if you can’t afford $250 then you need to get out of the rental business”.

Another resident argued that instead of limiting the $250 to rentals, why not have every resident pay $200 (parcel tax)? It would generate more money.

Another resident argued that the priority needs to be getting more officers so that the Department can be proactive and get the officers more vested in the community.

Fred Hoskins complained about 1-minute and explained how he needed more time and wanted to be heard. “The solution is not in the police department but with activities within the community to support our kids, school kids, and neighborhoods. But we focus on police, we go into debt because of the police and that’s a joke. Where are resources for parks and recreation? Where are resources provided for our kids? Should we dry up our football fields? Dry up our baseball fields?… the only focus is to the police department, I want to see focus with funds to support our children with activities, teenagers and people between 15-18. Our problems are not with section 8, unless we get into communities and the base of people.”

At the conclusion of the meeting, the council did offer a few comments, but really didn’t get into specifics as they thanked those for participating in the forum.

“We are going to be a self-help community… there is nothing we can’t do if we work together,” said Mayor Wade Harper.

Councilman Gary Agopian had the strongest comments as he again stated Antioch was in a “crime emergency”.

“After tonight, the time for talk is over. We have a crime emergency and can’t sit around and watch Rome burn. It’s time to put money into it and the time to act is now,” explained Agopian.

Councilwoman Mary Rocha offered her support towards the business tax on rentals.

“If the community wants it, I’m willing to put $200 per house to pay for police,” explained Mary Rocha.

I would hope city leader’s call on a second forum in the coming weeks with a more narrow set of rules and focus to discuss one of the three ideas currently on the table after staff has done their research which includes:

  • Sales Tax
  • Parcel Tax
  • Business License Tax

In retrospect this morning, with 100+ people in the room, the city may have missed an opportunity to provide an informal survey to allow folks to share what police services are most important to them.

For example, here are the current specialized units which are no longer staffed:

  • Traffic Unit had 5, now staffed at 0
  • SEU Unit had 12, now staffed at 0
  • Narcotics Unit ad 5, now staffed at 0
  • SRO had 4, now staffed at 0
  • Recruitment had 1, now staffed at 0
  • Admin. Lieutenant had 1, now staffed at 0

What would be the priority residents would like to see these services brought back. A giant list of police services should be created and distribute whenever possible to gather an idea of where people’s heads are at. This could also help craft the message going forward.

Last night’s forum was a start, but for this thing to be successful, Antioch residents need to begin changing their focus from the past to a brighter future.

Here are photos from last night, click to enlarge.

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11 comments

JimSimmons42 Mar 1, 2013 - 8:27 am

Thank you for the write up, yes people need to stop complaining and become part of the solution. I don’t understand this business tax. Police provide services to everyone so they should not only put this on business rental owners, it should be shared between everyone.

Rob Saw Mar 1, 2013 - 8:27 am

What is this nonsense about “open carry”? That would seem to add to Antiochs problems given the riff-raffs.

sara Mar 1, 2013 - 8:29 am

Mr. Burkholder, don’t be rude! It was an open forum meaning residents could talk about whatever they want and voice complaints.

Barbara DuMont Mar 1, 2013 - 8:43 am

Any meeting regarding the police dept will always become a whine fest. People just don’t understand what is going on and what the police officer can do. People are demanding an extremely high level of service but the resources aren’t there to provide it. Remember–its all the council’s and police dept’s fault that there are issues in Antioch. God forbid that citizen’s take any responsibility for the problems. There is only so much money to go around. Time to make a choice-more police and safer streets or more useless underused social programs???

Julio-Antioch Mar 1, 2013 - 10:37 am

I didn’t hear but one or two whining. It is the fault of some of these council members we are in this condition. This council is really just pushing every thing off on to the citizens AGAIN. Fred Hoskins has some good things to say sometimes but as all too often he was drunk. Yes, he was standing next to me as he left and I know the smell. This is Fred.

There were not enough people at the meeting and I would say the average age was between 60 and 70. The people who should have been there were not. It was a bad time to hold this kind of meeting.

Pablo Mar 1, 2013 - 10:51 am

If people are stuck in the past, they will be left behind. While I hate to agree with the author, I was there last night and this was a bitch fest. Instead of providing input and offer solutions, people complained about what they didn’t have or were not being provided. I say its about time someone calls it as it is. Antioch residents need to look forward and be positive about what this could do for us if something is approved. I would like to see a tax where everyone pays their fair share, not just business owners. aside from police, some of the cash should go to parks and rec to get our kids back on track.

Dave Pa Mar 1, 2013 - 10:52 am

the shcool district needs to step up as well. Work with PD on more programs

Sandra King Mar 1, 2013 - 11:16 am

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t Mr. Agopian and Take Back Antioch try to get this tax going on the ballot in November? Maybe they should have listened then.

Jose Mar 1, 2013 - 11:48 am

I was there, the author has a distorted view of what transpired. This is very misleading piece as only a few people complained. People are pissed and the council is offering nothing.

Julio-Antioch Mar 1, 2013 - 12:59 pm

Jose, I agree with you. If any of you were at the Forums UCBN, Gary Gilbert and Mayor Freitas had you would know what a bitch fest is. Or perhaps take in a few of our council meetings. Many of those are bitch fests.

Clark Mar 3, 2013 - 4:46 pm

Antioch has a lot of problems and people are going to complain. Council needs to listen to the people and not do what they are going to do to fit their own agenda. No 50+1, needs to be 2/3 and only for police

Comments are closed.