Mayor Harper: Antioch Has Power to Write New Story

Yesterday afternoon, the Antioch Chamber of Commerce held its annual State of the City Address where Mayor Wade Harper provided an inspirational speech about how Antioch must move forward for the benefit of all residents and work as a community.

Prior to the Mayor Speaking,  City Manager Jake Jakel encouraged attendees to shop locally and purchase gas in Antioch because tax revenue is vital. Meanwhile, Chamber of Commerce CEO and local chiropractor Sean Wright shared how shopping at Lowes vs. Home Depot on Lone Tree can make a huge difference in terms of tax revenue because by Antioch residents shopping at Lowes, that money stays in Antioch.

The mayor concurred with Jakel and Wrights comments.

“I support and agree with the concept of supporting regional approaches to economic development and opportunities that leverage existing industry strengths and regional partnerships. We as a city council we realize that our privilege to lead comes from the people that our success is measured by our service to the people and the achievement of tangible goals,” said Harper.

We have a city council have looked within we have already pledged to work as a cohesive unit. We are working together for the betterment of the community. We believe in being transparent, being transparent about the state of our community,” explained Harper.

He went on to acknowledge his fellow council members in the room.

Here is his speech from yesterdays State of the City Address.

We are continuously moving forward towards our goal. I am going to make a proclamation today. My proclamation is this. Today I proclaim, Antioch, that we have the power as a community to our great city forward. I am going to tower our chief a little bit, but I don’t want our successes to rest on our laurels or keep us in neutral, we need to keep it moving forward.

We are not going to allow past failures, the economy, financial difficulties suffering the worst recession since the great depression. We are not going to allow these things to derail us, discourage us, or defeat us. In other words, we are not going to allow the punishment of the past to hurt our present and paralyze our progress. We are going to keep it moving.

Antioch, we have the power to create a new story. A story of the safest city in northern California, the story of a vibrant downtown and a ferry terminal, a story of a city that benefits from its water rights, where business thrive and flourish when they move to Antioch and a story where transportation is a no longer a curse but a blessing because of $1.3 billion being spent right there in Antioch to expand Highway 4 and bring in the Hillcrest Bart Station.

A story where the high performance school district receives unprecedented support from the community and council for its link learning academy. I don’t take for granted our cooperation between the city and school board; I think it helps to have three former school board members on the council.

Times time to for us as a city to grow our revenues. we must stop complaining about how we are going to divide up the pie, we need to grow the pie. We need to increase revenue city in order to become a safe and vibrant city.  I believe the community gets it. There is a group of concerned citizens who have been meeting to address the lack of revenue. They call themselves the Friday Morning Breakfast Club. Former mayor Don Frietas is apart of that and they have presented a proposal and we are looking at it and working with that group and city council to do what is best for our city to bring in more revenue to our city. Mr. Freitas, thank you.

The mayor then listed a few comments of achievements from the City

• Continuous hiring of sworn police officers. 5 new officers
• A few Community Safety Officers
• Limited code enforcement hiring
• There is a professional search firm to hire next city manager
• City Council has been in governance training and in process of strategic planning
• Retail expansion includes new stores plus more expansion coming
• City staff met with Buchannan Crossing – will close and build new shopping center
• City eligible to provide small business loans (As trustees)
• Northeast Annexation meeting shave become
• Energy Power Plant have entered into commercial operations
• Community beautification efforts continue
• Revenue ballot measure is being considered
• Construction began on artificial turf projects
• Public-Private partnership with billboard company
• Started Antioch Community Foundation – youth and senior programs

I need to mention this, there was damage done to a community park. The park was set on fire by a young man. This park had been built by volunteers. Talk about turning tragedy into triumph. This park is now being NRG, PGE, Take Back Antioch, Assemblyman Jim Frazier and faith community… let’s give them a hand.

This is the Antioch I know and love. Let’s look forward to the future and continue to complete northeast annexation process where we are going to advocate for Antioch and Contra Costa’s role on the WETA Board, Assemblyman Jim Frazier has been instrumental in helping us on that. We are going to complete the impact start-study project, continue to pursue revenue generating opportunities, expanded  local employment opportunities for residents, talked about hiring new city manager, to maintain proactive approaches to our cities water rights, to maintain strict control over budget expenditures, to expand code enforcement, continue critical hiring process of police officers, we want to maintain a strong relationship with the Antioch Unfired School District as well as our business community as well as our Chamber of Commerce

We are moving forward into the future and Antioch I know we have been through some hard time and the water got deep a couple of times and we were spared from bankruptcy. We were close to drowning and employees gave up $3 million in salaries and benefits but I have a feeling that if we as a city council can just raise this city up a little bit to the surface, I think the community will take hold and pull us out of an economy slump and if we do our part, the community will do its part.

Please don’t look for any plan to solve all of our problems, no real plan does, we as a community will take charge of our future and the city of Antioch will be an even better place to live, work, play and invest. I am reminded of a quote by Robert Shula who said “tough times never last, tough people do.”.

Antioch the state of the city is in your hands, we are in charge of our future. Thank you and god bless you and god bless Antioch.

Note: We have posted a video of this on YouTube if you want to watch it.

The luncheon at the Antioch Community Center also featured updates from Antioch Police Chief Allan Cantando and City Manager Jim Jakel.

Jakel is confident the City will turn around, but admits it wont be an easy journey.

“Things are better, but there is still a long way to go,” said Jakel. “The hole we are in is really deep. We had revenues of $47 million in 2008 and we are projecting next year revenues of $36 million so we are still $11 million off of where we were 5 years ago and the year we had $47 million in revenue we had $46 million in expenditures. So we are $10 million short of where we need to spend 5-years ago. So we are in a hole really deep and it’s a hole really deep caused by loss of property tax.

What we really need to do is work on the retail base. You need to shop here, friends shop here, get in the habit of buying here.

“If you just work in this community, buy your gas, shop here. The retail base is so vital. Property tax is not going to move quickly, we really need to step money,” explained Jakel. “We will be great again, we have a ton of work to do, last year I was 80% confident, and this year I am 100% confident we will succeed here.”

Meanwhile, Antioch Police Chief touted all the improvements the Police Department is making to get more eyes and ears on the streets by working with Allied Waste and the post office to train them to report potential crimes in progress as well as sharing two uplifting stories of Antioch residents who saved lives this past year.

He was cautious in stating although crime was down, it was only a small sample and those numbers may increase in the future. However, he was proud of the US District Attorney who recently came to Antioch and stated the City was ahead of the curve compared to other cities.

For more on the Antioch Chamber of Commerce, visit their website.