Antioch Mayor Served With Recall Papers for Second Time

During Tuesdays Antioch City Council Meeting, Antioch Mayor Wade Harper was served with recall paperwork for the second time during public comments.

Antioch resident Rich Buongiorno explained after the meeting that the initial recall and the reason about it has not significantly changed.

“The exception is that the interested persons requesting to join the group has increased significantly.  People are seeing that nothing has changed.  In fact, without the December crime results, overall crime has increased 16% since Harper became a council person in 2010,” stated Buongiorno. “Crime is not going down.  It may go down for a month or even a year, it is a moving target in the short-term.”

He noted in the long-term, Antioch needs a zero-tolerance approach drive down crime. He also highlighted that while Harper is taking some responsibility, Antioch now has a reputation for its crime and violence while being anti-business.

“Well over 150 businesses have moved out of Antioch to neighboring cities or shuttered their doors in just the last two years.  There goes the jobs, there goes the revenues,” highlighted Buongiorno. “This is what is bringing more support to the recall.  The failed promises, the same rhetoric, the same inaction.”

During Public Comments, as part of the reasoning for the recall, Buongiorno questioned the games the city was playing by not bringing back City employees to full time status in order for political gain in a November ballot Measure O.

Buongiorno asked the question that in April 2014, that the city received 2.7 million payment and then in June then $500k (rounded) and then in October $269k all which is prior to November 4 election. He accused the council of never making those property tax figures public so that it could help with a ballot measure to put more money in the general fund.

“I would think that if we got $3.5 million, roughly, that we would want to become a full service city, not hold it off for 9-months until January, 2015. It seems as if we had $2.7 million in April, we could have become a full service since we are only talking about $800k roughly,” said Buongiorno. “Why wasn’t the city full service when it could have been? I would like some sort of answer.”

He added that when you really think about this policy, the employees won because they received vacation pay for an entire year.

“The endorsement of Measure O on the City site by the city council specifically indicated they were to use measure O monies for the furlough Friday and that was on September 23. They knew they had the money and lied,” stated Buongiorno.

He further highlighted that not only did Antioch have the money, they said that what Measure O was for and they haven’t received any revenue from it. However, they went full service proving themselves to be liars or playing with budget line items which undermines public trust.

He says Measure O is another reason why the recall will continue is Antioch needs honest leadership.

Here is a brief timeline of what had transpired in the first attempt which was halted over a missed deadline.

• September 23, 2014: Residents threaten a recall to Mayor Wade Harper at the city council meeting. They accused Mayor Harper of being “missing in action” and instead, first in line to take photographs with the media. One resident, simply asked the Mayor to step down. Residents also accuse the City of not fixing crime and state crime is not getting any better, but instead getting worse.
• October 14, 2014: Mayor Harper officially served with recall paperwork. Harper responding during council meeting with list of accomplishments.
• October 24, 2014, written response to the recall by Mayor Harper urges Community to come together and reject Recall effort highlighting crime is a top priority and the progress that was being made.
• November 4, 2014: The recall was halted over a missed deadline in the process. Rich Buongiorno accused the City Clerk and City Attorney of providing misinformation to the recall proponents.Simonsen explained that the Mayor responded to the Petition on October 22 and on October 23 sent a copy certified mail to Mr. Buongiorno on October 23. The 10-day clock started on October 23.

  “It’s 10 calendar days and the exception to the rule is if the 10^th day is on a weekend, it goes to the next Monday,” explained Simonsen. “A copy of the election code was provided to Mr. Buongiorno where it clearly states he has to publish notice of intention served in October. All he had to do was take that to local newspaper and publish it.”

  Antioch City Manager Steve Duran stated there is not much they can do.

  “I don’t think that the City Clerk can do anything but follow the rules as the State wrote them,” said Duran.

  Meanwhile, Mayor Wade Harper explained there was no confusion on his part about the timeline stating he followed the rules.

  “There certainly was no confusion on my part. The instructions are clear,” said Harper. “I filed my response in a timely manner. I am open to meeting with the applicant of the intent to recall to listen to his ideas about how to make our city better. I have no hard feelings.”

• January 13, 2015: Mayor Harper served with recall paperwork for the second time.