On Tuesday night, the City of Antioch announced out of closed session that a raise for City Manager Ron Bernal is on hold for the time being.
City Attorney Derek Cole reported that the city council met to discuss negotiations with Bernal and that they will work to create a step program tied to performance.
“The Council and City Manager have announced that they will not seek any contract amendment to the City Manager’s contract at this time,” announced Cole. “The City Council gave direction to staff to develop a salary schedule for the city manager that involves a step-system that is tied to performance for consideration at a future time.”
The move came after the Mayor and Bernal negotiated a $20,000 raise that Council was set to vote on at the June 12 meeting—Bernal is currently making $230,000.
The goal for the raise was to bring Bernal more in line with other local city managers as he is the lowest paid according to a recent salary survey. He is also paid less than the Antioch Police Chief.
The salary survey included:
- $281,507 – Richmond
- $274,104 – Concord
- $257,760 – Pittsburg
- $254,000 – Walnut Creek
- $251,075 – Brentwood
- $250,000 – Antioch (proposed)
- $239,460 – Oakley
- $230,000 – Bernal’s current salary
On June 12, Mayor Pro Tem Lamar Thorpe expressed concerns over the negotiations and requested they take the item back to closed session and bring back to a future meeting.
“I would like to bring this back at a later date to closed session, so we can address some concerns I have,” said Thorpe.
Mayor Sean Wright, who negotiated the contract agreement with Bernal, stated on June 12 that while Bernal was doing a “phenomenal job” that he disagreed with the 9% increase and would vote no on it.
It was not stated Tuesday what timeline staff will have to create incentives, performance measurables or what type of step-program would be created or when it would be brought back for Council approval.
There was also no staff report associated with the closed session report.
19 comments
This city council is something else. How does one negotiate a raise only to vote no? I get the $20k is a huge number. But why not give him a 2-3% increase instead? Now they are saying performance based? How and why did they hire him then? Did they not give him goals to hit upon hiring? Did they not see this coming every year on a contract negotiation? Or did they simply hire Bernal last year with no goals to be met just to get rid of Duran?
Thank god there is an election this year for two seats and ALL of them up in 2020. These people are not very sharp.
No one deserves a $20k raise in a single year. Thank you Lamar Thorpe for stopping this madness.
Karen must be from Cuba or just naive to white collar America pay inequity. CEO’s make 200x what an average worker make in the US. Companies dissolve, go through massive cuts, bankruptcies, lay offs, even criminal negligent behavior; but we will always take care of the richest at the top and see them taken care of before the little man no matter what.
Yes, thank you Lamar. Ridiculous. Think the Mayor”s diet has affected his clear judgment.
On the June 12 only one citizen of Antioch spoke on this item. Why don’t voters pay attention to what is going on and attend council meetings? Staff runs away with this city day after day and no one pays attention.
Thank you to Lamar for being on his toes and Sean backing him up.
Sean backed him up? Sean negotiated the $20k raise only to vote no? How is that negotiation of good faith? Made Bernal look like a bozo. Ron should probably sue his own city.
I never thought of arrogance in connection with Mr. Bernal but it applies now. Captain Ron, the entire council fits your description of bozo. Lamar manages to look out for us some of the time and so does Sean.
All of these fukers are greedy crooks! Fix our city you worthless fuks!
He should actually walk the city streets himself and take notes on the condition and the comments from the people. Sitting behind the desk and hearing all the great things about Antioch from staff is bull shit. Be a real man and open your eyes.
Ron Bernal is rarely in his office and out in the city quite frequently or in a meeting. Folks, Antioch is now the 54th largest city in California out of 482 cities!! We are understaffed in the Police Department, Information Services, the City Clerk’s Office and in Public Works. For the first year as City Manager, Ron Bernal was also the Public Works Director AND City Engineer!! Other City Managers don’t wear those hats and responsibilities.
This city is top heavy once again. Ron is a nice guy with rose colored glasses. He doesn’t see what the rest of the citizens see.
This was the right thing to do but something that should have been done BEFORE it ever came to council for approval and made public. They totally did it backwards and I can understand if Ron’s frustrated. First he’s told he’ll get a raise/correction, someone had to champion it on Council to even make the agenda, but then no one backs it? Instead it’s pulled, discussed in closed session, and conditions thrown on it. And what if those conditions are unattainable and/or Mr. Bernal declines the terms, is he fired? That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen or another payout by Council.
Because they did it backwards, Council should have shown good faith and split the difference and gave him $10k now with another $10k – $20k adjustment after performance milestones were met. The incentive would still be there. And since there’s supposedly a competent Econ Dev Director (Kwame), get rid of the person below him and they can save $96k from her salary alone in order to cover Ron’s raise!
Well let take a look at the facts. it is his first time being the city manager and you are an at will employee. So if your not performing the way the council think you should be your fired.or they don’t have to renew your contract. So by offering to renew his contract he must be doing the job….no telling what kind of crazy goals there going to try to set for him …get rid of homeless, reduce crime by 50 percent, up our housing prices to the rest of contra Costa county, bring in Microsoft and Amazon on the water front. And the craziest thing redeveloping the down town. Where the city doesn’t own any of the properties and they don’t have the money to by the properties. So it will never look like Livermores down town they have been talking about redeveloping the down town for 25 years and had 2 city managers that devoted there whole careers to redevelopment and when they tried to do something with the one piece of property they had it got him fired
Are you people in favor of a pay raise kidding ?? The city has allocated $90,000 for a “Re-brand Antioch” campaign consultant on top of the pay raise ? This guy has no prior experience as a City Manager — ANYWHERE, sure he ran Public Works, but that is different than being City Manager. The governor of California makes $201,000 per year …. Yeah here come the “moonbeam” talking points. The Chief of Police makes more than the City Manager because the Chief of Police makes policies that directly affect lives of the citizens — the City Manager does not. With the money the council wants to spend on the raise and re-brand program, they could hire an additional police officer (create a new position) OR provide money to sorely underfunded/understaffed Animal Services — but that is another story in and of itself.
Well said. I so agree with you. Animal Services didn’t even comply with animal welfare laws. Definitely would like to see more police. Antioch could make a fortune on traffic enforcement. Certainly enough to pay officer salaries.
Unfortunately contrary to popular opinion traffic tickets are not revenue generators. Of the fine that is levied the city only gets about $30, the rest covers court costs and other administrative fees. On top of the fact when an officer (Antioch) appears in traffic court on their time off, they are entitled (and rightfully so) to 4 hours of overtime pay which equates to about $200. Citations are issued as “learning experience” for the knucklehead driver — not a money generator for a city.
Vince, you obviously dont understand business…With that amount of tickets that can be written per day and at $30 to the City on each, thats alot of volume. Why does Mcdonalds make money? Its all based off volume! Its pretty simple.
Drive down Lone Tree and look around, then drive down Sand Creek or Baldour in Brentwood. If you can get this city to look half as good as theirs does, then you deserve a raise. But until then , you are an overpaid bullshitter like the rest of them.
That extra money could go to cooperative agreements with homeless/criminals for beautification. But this is America, where we believe in punitive action before rehabilitative. SMH.
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