Beverly Knight Continues Mission of Keeping Antioch Clean

Kudos go out to Beverly Knight because while many people talk about improving Antioch, Ms. Knight is actually out there trying to improve it.  There can be no better example of single-handedly trying to clean up one’s city than Monday morning as she was out cleaning up a trash filled park by herself.

Although she put out an alert to join her and over a two hour period, no one showed. But she was not discouraged as she filled bag after bag of other people’s trash—nearly 10 trash bags in total upon completion of the mornings clean up effort. This is nothing new to Ms. Knight, she has been doing these types of pickups for years now and has been covered in other newspapers such as the Contra Costa Times and Brentwood Press.

She is an example of the community stepping up to help where the City is not providing the services.

When I caught up with her Monday morning at City Park in Antioch, she explained how she drove by the park on Sunday night and saw that there were three jumpy’s at 6:30 pm still going strong and knew the park was not going to be in good shape the next day.

“I was going to start Sunday night, but the parties were still going past 6:30 so I thought I would come early so others could enjoy a clean park. The city came earlier this morning (Monday) to clean the bathrooms, but they didn’t touch the trash. It doesn’t make much sense to me,” said Knight.

According to Antioch Police Chief Allan Cantando, due to a lack of resources, the city does not have a mechanism to address the garbage at parks explaining how those who use the park should pick up after themselves.

“We have code enforcement that could do that when the numbers are up, but right now they are dealing with some pretty serious stuff. We have the ability to fine people for littering in the park, but we have to be there to see it,” said Cantando.

He was quick to point out that they don’t want to give tickets for littering, but would rather just help people realize by presence in the area that they shouldn’t be leaving a mess for others to pick up.

Knight would like to see the city take better care of its parks and create an “adopt a park” program to ensure parks remain clean and says the cost would be next to nothing to run.

“Each park needs someone to care of it,” stated Knight. “I don’t know what we need to do, but we have to do something.”

District 11 Assemblyman Jim Frazier also likes the idea of an Adopt the Park Program and says Oakley implemented one and it was pretty successful. Frazier recalled the PG&E check presentation of $25k for Take Back Antioch to rebuild the toddler portion of City Park where he saw Beverly Knight arrive early and pick up trash to ensure the park was beautiful for the media attention the ceremony would receive.

“Beverly Knight is just a fantastic citizen who cares for her community, I wish we had more Beverly Knights out there,” said Assemblyman Frazier.

In speaking with Antioch Mayor Wade Harper, he said he is planning to bring up the issue of Adopt a Park to local community groups in the near future to see if a program could be rolled out to Antioch, but pointed out the city needs volunteers to make the program a success. He did note that The United Citizens for a Better Neighborhood conducts cleanups once a month and any citizen can clean up a park on their own.

“You can’t legislate good manners.” said Mayor Harper. “We should revisit the idea of placing cameras at problem parks.”

Antioch Councilwoman Monica Wilson likes the idea of Adopt a Park.

“Adopt a park is a good idea and helpfully in the future it’s something we can move forward on. I’d really like to see a group of individuals living close to parks get involved. If I lived near this park, I want to take pride in it to look nice for not only myself, but for others within the community,” said Councilwoman Wilson.

Wilson was impressed with Ms. Knights actions on Monday and hopes more individuals follow her lead.

“I think it’s wonderful what Beverly did. It’s so Beverly. No one needs to tell her the park is dirty. She just goes and cleans it. It’s wonderful we have citizens that take pride in the community. We as a council should look to take what these citizens are doing and look at options to do this on a larger scale,” said Wilson.

Wilson explains there are things currently being done, but the city need more outreach on cleanups to increase volunteerism.

“I would like to see cleanups being held more than once a month, but it all comes down to community participation,” said Wilson.

Still, Wilson does not like the fact people are not cleaning up after themselves after park usage stating that park users need a permit and sign a contract with parks and recreation which could issue a fine if the space is left dirty.

“We are trying to enforce ensuring parks are clean, but if you’re in the park using it and bring in garbage, clean up after yourself.  Leave the place better than you found it. Clean up after yourselves. Pick up someone else’s garbage. Someone may have left it, but you don’t also need to leave it,” said Wilson.

Wilson was quick to point out the lack of funding for Parks and Recreation and Code Enforcement. This problem is solved with some personal responsibility. She did state she wants to look at better improving outreach for park cleanup days to get more volunteers involved.

“With summer approaching, I hope Adopt a Park is something we can look into and see if we can make it happen,” said Wilson.

While Chief Cantando also praised Ms. Knight’s efforts, he explained the reality of staffing levels and the need of an increase of volunteerism.  He explained a management component is needed which isn’t there right now as the person who would be in charge has many other programs that have been added to their responsibilities due to budget cuts.

“Beverly Knight is already taking up an Adopt the Park Program and we should get a program like that, but we need people to manage them. It’s great to have volunteers, but volunteers need people putting things together. There is a management component to these programs. When you have limited staff you can only have so many programs,” explained Cantando.

Councilman Tony Tiscareno explained that this issue simply falls on personal responsibility and park users need to clean up after themselves.

“If people can’t care for our parks, we are going to get to a point where we can no longer make parks accessible. No one wants to see that,” explained Tiscareno. “It’s a shame we do not have the resources to better fund parks and recreation or code enforcement, hopefully we can increase their funding during the next budget cycle.”

With a potential tax being discussed right now for the police department, it would allow them to hire more code enforcement officers. While it won’t solve the problem, it would help it.

“The more boots you have on the street, the more we can accomplish and prioritized with community needs such as park garbage,” said Cantando.

Here are a few photographs I shot of Beverly Knight on Monday at City Park.