City Council - Special Meeting

you Thank you.

Good afternoon and welcome to the special and regular City Council meeting for the City of Antioch, Tuesday, May the 26th, 2026. Mr. Clerk, could you please take the role?

Thank you. Council Member Torres-Walker is absent. Council Member Rocha? Here. Council Member Wilson?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Freitas?

Present.

Mayor Bernal? Here. Thank you. We have a quorum at 4 o'clock p.m. All right. Will you please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, do we have any public comments?

We have no public comments.

All right, we have three closed session items tonight. Ms. City Attorney, will you please let us know what those are?

THE FIRST ITEM IS PUBLIC EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE EVALUATION PURSUANT TO GOVERNMENT CODE SECTIONS 54957B1 AND 54954.5E, POSITION TO BE REVIEWED CITY ATTORNEY. THE SECOND ITEM IS ALSO A PUBLIC EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE EVALUATION PURSUANT TO GOVERNMENT CODE SECTIONS 54957B1 AND 54954.5E, POSITION TO BE REVIEWED CITY MANAGER. And the last is a conference with legal counsel. Significant exposure to litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9E2. Nine potential cases, city is in receipt of information concerning facts and circumstances that might result in litigation against the city, which are known to a potential plaintiff or plaintiffs pertaining to possible equal employment opportunity, labor code section 1102.5, and Fair Employment and Housing Act violations. And those are the three items.

All right, thank you very much. We will now adjourn to closed session. Meeting is adjourned at 4.02 p.m.

So,

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Thank you.

Good evening, everybody, and welcome to our special city council meeting for Tuesday, May the 26th, 2026. Mr. Clerk, can you please take the role? Thank you.

Council Member Rocha. Here. Council Member Torres-Walker.

Present.

Council Member Wilson.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Pradis. Present. Mayor Bernal. Here. Thank you. All council members are present.

We have a quorum at 5.17 p.m. All right, if you could please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

So we will now get started with item SM1, study session. We're gonna start off with the fiscal year 26, 27, budget development. I'll turn this over to our acting city manager for a briefing on this.

Yes, good evening or good afternoon mayor and council members. So this is the study session and we are presenting the fiscal year 26, 27 budget development. Before I started the meeting or before we start with this, I did want to say thank you to all the department heads. They have been working very closely with finance director and myself and I did want to say thank you to city council for the last meeting. We got really good feedback. So we were able to go back and identify a lot of cost savings as well. So I just wanted to say thank you. And now I turn it over to our finance director.

Yes, good evening, Mayor and Council. So this provides some follow up to some questions that were asked at the last meeting. Where we're at with some reductions we made thus far from direction at the last meeting and departments that we've been able to meet with so far. Myself and acting city manager will be the remaining departments this week to do some additional review and potential budget reductions to bring back on June 9th for a final draft budget presentation. But in terms of follow up questions, we can go through those. One of the questions were if facility roof replacements were included in the draft budget. They are not, they're shown in the CIP as unfunded. The Public Works Department provided some costs for some roofing at the Antioch Community Center, being 540,000 that's shown as unfunded for fiscal year 27. 1.35 million in the police department. After further evaluation of that, potentially, it is unfunded, but we could reduce that to 350,000 in fiscal year 27 to do some maintenance work and do remaining roof repair and replacement in fiscal year 28 of one million. But again, that would still need a funding source. The maintenance service center, it shows in CIP is 490,000 unfunded for fiscal year 28 and city hall 345,000 in fiscal year 28. The next question is when does the park maintenance contract expire? The report does say June 30th, 2026, but there was a little bit of mix up between the parks and the median and landscape. So it's actually June 30th, 2027. So just want to make that correction for the record. Whether the APOC training budget of 75,000 can be reduced. This is in the city manager's budget. It shows under the city manager's division there's no training requirement or budget required for APOC training in a settlement agreement. Upon review of the training, the committee could potentially attend. This budget has been reduced to $50,000 in fiscal year 26 and fiscal year 27. So there's a $25,000 reduction in the budget for fiscal year 27, reducing the deficit spending a little bit.

Ms. Mergent, do you want questions during or after?

It's at the pleasure of the council what you would like to do.

Just on this particular item, we did hear from some of the public that they couldn't find the APOC budget and find out that it's actually under the city manager's budget under business expenses, correct? Yes. Could we separate those out so that people can see where the APOC budget actually is, where does it reside?

Yes, and any future budget presentations that this comes forth, we'll segregate out the APOC on there.

The other part of that is we need to take a look at the travel policy for the city council, for boards and commissions, and city staff as we move forward.

Yes, I believe the acting city manager made a notation of that comment from the last meeting, so I did. No, I'm looking into it.

Do we know how much has been spent to date on training for the APOC, training and travel?

Yes, so actually if you go to the next page, item four, there is a fiscal year, 26th year to date, and so this is as about a week ago. For APOC, you can see it's $25,361 has been spent year to date, as I said, as about a week ago.

And that was with the commission not even being fully seated and just sending seated commissioners to trainings, right?

Whoever is on the commission during this fiscal year, that's where that's, yeah.

The commission just became fully seated. We were missing one or two members each time. So I know that there's a question. I got questions from commission members around How do we continue to train people to actually run this, be a part of this commission and be effective in their purpose if they don't have a budget to do training? Whether the training is outlined in the settlement agreement or not, you don't want people who do not have training on how to do community police oversight, governance, and their responsibilities if they don't have enough funding to make sure every member is trained. So I will be concerned about, I am concerned about reducing the budget, but if every commission member could be trained annually to effectively be a member of that commission at the 50,000, it will be important to know what are those trainings annually that they could be required to go to to stay up on their duties.

Okay. I think on that note, it'd be nice to know what actually... where the money that's been spent has gone. Has it been for training as you're describing? I understand there was a conference where a number of the APOC members went. Is that the only cost or is that one of the costs? I think it should be probably more transparent on how much money's been spent, what's been spent on so that we have a better idea of how much is really needed to train onboarding new members so we know the cost.

And we can do that. We can actually go back and see what's been spent.

Yeah, on the 9th, we can bring back a detail of what was actually the breakdown of this $25,361.

Mr. Scudero, could you come forward? I need to ask a question with regards to the Planning Commission. It's my understanding that on an annual basis, at least two members of the Planning Commission go to training.

Yeah, there's an annual planning Commissioner conference. I think in the past It's been about two two to three depending on budget and where it's located, right?

So and they try to rope to and my understand is a rope trying to rotate this So that after two or three years all the members have received that same type of training That's typically how we do it when we do have the budget available. We'll kind of a lot of times It's the newer member who gets on board.

But yeah, it is kind of a rotation We definitely don't send all seven

Right. I mean, there is a Ralph M. Brown Act consideration that we all need to be very sensitive to. So there is a legal part of this. And that's really part of the reason I'm asking for the travel policy to come back to us. Because we need to articulate what type of training is required. And then to try to figure out how to budget it. It doesn't have to be all in one year. It can be parceled out. And we have the planning commission that has been operating that way for as long as, for more than 30 years that I'm aware of.

Yeah, that's typically, I think the most I've seen at a planning commissioner conference is probably three.

Yeah, usually two to three. Yeah. OK, I just want to make sure so that we're trying to treat all of our boards and commissions. OK, thank you.

OK, so the breakdown of business expenses in the chart under number four there.

And I appreciate this, but I think in some respect we need some details. So if you look at conferences and dues, it went from $20,170 in fiscal year 25 to $34,060 in 26. If staff could please provide us more details of what... what those conferences were, what the due structure is, because the category, while I appreciate it's being broken down, it doesn't really answer, I think, some of the questions that we have, you know, like what did you spend the money on?

We can come back with that information.

That would definitely be true for media, public information.

Did you say the whole list?

Not the whole list, but just, sorry.

There's quite a few of them, if we can get the breakdown, it'd be good to see.

Okay, yes, we'll bring back on the ninth APOC the conferences and dues and then the media public information for you. Okay, the next was why business expense in non-departmental was so much higher last year than current year. We had bad debt write off for uncollectible receivables of approximately 378,000. This is an accounting entry we're required to do at year end for financial reporting where we have to see what our receivables aging buckets are. And we're required to write off a portion to uncollectible accounts. The city does utilize a collections agency for those, so But barring bankruptcy or something like that where we no longer have the ability to collect, we do continue to pursue those.

Can you give some examples? Because you write bad debt, but I don't think the public really understands that. Can you just give a couple examples?

So we bill, for example, if a vehicle hit a fire hydrant in the city and they damage the property, and say we bill them $1,000. And after 90 days, they still haven't paid. There's a percentage that gets written off as uncollectible. So we have to put it in an uncollectible accounts receivable account. That's something we're required to do per accounting standards. And if it's over 120 days, we actually are required to write off the whole balance. But then as we collect the money, we keep the revenue in the city's funds. But as we collect the money and we have to adjust this allowance account, we either have to recognize expense for accounts we still haven't collected or we recognize essentially a revenue for being able to reduce that allowance account. So it's all function just of your end what we're required to do for financial reporting.

And then is that number normal for an average year?

That one was actually a little bit higher. It can fluctuate usually anywhere between 50 and 100,000 that we have to adjust our receivables.

And then do you ever reconcile it against once you do this write off against how much we actually collect going forward?

So when we get collections from the collection agency, we get a report of those collections and then we reduce the allowance account based on that. And then our operations team is making sure that what's on the collections account are current and reconcile to our records of what we've sent them, for example, so yeah.

Would you say that we aggressively pursue these as a city to get collection on them?

I mean, I would say so because we do use a collections agency. Also, our operations supervisor has gone to small claims court. We work with the attorney's office. So we definitely don't just sit by the wayside and hope the money comes in. We know that it's important for our revenues to actually pursue those.

Thank you.

The question came about the breakdown of youth network services contracts. That's in attachment B. That was provided by the Public Safety and Community Resources Director.

Any questions on attachment B?

And this attachment also includes the homeless services budget breakdown.

So under attachment B, the housing and homeless division. Yes. So the way this is structured is that the 400,000 and the 1.56 million are both general fund expenditures. Yes. But it's my understanding that part of the housing and homeless division is not going to be general fund. It's gonna be funded through other funding sources.

Yes. So there is, for example, the Winter Nights Shelter, the Facing Homelessness Stand, Bay Area Legal Aid, Contra Costa Crisis Center, Loaves and Fishes, and Shelter, Inc. are actually through successor agency and PHLA. I think there was some confusion in pulling this budget together because actually when it's just when we look at the homeless service, there's also a contracts account called Contracts Core Team, and then there's a regular contracts And so actually 100,000 of this was already pegged in the successor agency fund. 100,000 of this should have been core team instead of identified as the Contra Costa Crisis Loaves and Fishes and Shelter Inc. So I apologize for the confusion on that.

But they had what you're saying when I was looking at this and I was also looking at the CDBG Information that we have for tonight a number of these items are within the CDBG funding when you look at the $10,000 grants so my confusion is What you see here, how much of this is general fund and how much is coming from federal dollars?

And since meeting, I did meet with the Public Safety and Community Resources Director just a few hours ago just to, as part of our budget review for further reductions. we identified the expenditures that were already in CDBG and so shouldn't be in here. So although it's not reflected in the numbers this evening, we were able to adjust, reduce the fiscal year 27 budget and move out the winter nights, the facing homelessness stand, and then the Bay Area legal aid. As I said, the Contra Costa crisis, Lowe's and Fish and Shelter for Inc. for 100,000, that was incorrectly included in here. It should have just been 100,000 to the core team. So we've made the adjustments and taken out the extra expenditure. So when we come back on the 9th, you'll see reduced expenditures for the homeless services budget.

Yeah, that was the part that I was a little bit concerned about too, is just clarifying what's general fund and what isn't. Because sometimes we get mixed on where those dollars are coming from and how they sometimes support the same programs or similar programs.

All right, and this might be a question for Director Cabral, but on the Youth Network Services Division, what's the process for how these different contracts are applied for and awarded?

We will ask Director Cabral to come forward.

Good evening, council and mayor.

This is an RFP process that we put out November, December of the previous year. And it's usually due at the end of January, and then we award folks as soon as the budget is adopted. So these are tentative numbers. The amount of money that they request is much more than what we move forward with granting them.

And who makes the decision on who gets awarded how much?

It's a review, it's a panel made up of youth between the ages of 14 to 26, as well as some staff members.

Okay, and I guess I would just wonder if something like this, similar to the $50,000, the community civic engagement fund, we stopped funding that, but that was something that came forward to council for approval. Does this come forward to council? I don't recall having seen it. Does this come forward to council for approval? No.

No, what has happened in the past is that we had, just for transparency purposes, we have the list of all of them and what exactly they do, and council adopts a resolution funding each different organization for a specific amount.

So we do that as a council action? Do we do it all at one time? Yes. Okay, okay, good. All right, thank you.

Mr. Mayor, just on that point about the civic engagement, were postponing it this coming fiscal year.

Correct. Yeah, it's been frozen for the year. Yes, paused for one year. Yes.

Okay, the next question was about if the, for the Homekey Plus and the fiscal year 26 budget, whether CDBG could be used for building acquisition. That was the intent. However, as we know, I don't believe anything's gonna happen by June 30th, so 400,000 was removed. from the general fund budget in fiscal year 26 that you see in the draft budget numbers this evening. But since writing this report, you will see from the public hearing tonight for the CDBG and the housing successor funding, the 750,000 acquisition is not included in the CDBG request. It's actually being, for some sort of housing program included in the housing successor fund proposed expenditures which you'll see again in that um for this evening so just to clarify on that the the substantial amendment is what we um called for

and there was a period of like 90 days that they had to go through before any further action could be taken. So that amount of money comes from funding that was previously awarded that wasn't gonna be received forward. I wanna say it was 1.3 million, and that is what will be discussed later tonight in CDBG, but that's what that's referencing is the substantial amendment was to reallocate funds that were being returned to the city that had not been, that were not gonna be moving forward as intended.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, great, so then the next is for number eight, the home key project. When would the 1.2 annual commitment start? It would start after the building is purchased, operationalized, and residents are being served. The 1.2, as I had said, was in the fiscal year 27 budget. But in light of everything that's update since I've written this, because the 750 would potentially come out of housing successor. That needs to be taken from that number and then potentially there could be some operational subsidy that could happen towards the latter part of the fiscal year. So in talking with the public safety and community resources director, we would recommend just keeping 400,000. So reducing the 1.2 down to 400,000 in fiscal year 2020. just in case there's a cushion of something has to be given towards this project. So that's not in the numbers on chart A, but on the ninth we'll be reducing that from 1.2 to $400,000. So that's a substantial cut from the fiscal year 27 budget that will be- Is that okay with council?

We use it at 400,000? Yeah. Yes? Okay.

Okay.

Or allocate.

Yeah, right, reducing it from 1.2 to 400,000 allocated for this. So for number nine, the public safety community resources housing and homeless services budget, it was questioning about doesn't CDBG cover safe parking? The response is that CDBG and PLHA do provide support for safe parking. However, the funding does not fully cover the annual program operating costs and thus additional support is necessary to sustain the program. So I don't know if there's any additional questions on that.

So how much does the general fund then contribute towards that?

So for the safe parking, if you refer to Attachment.

It says 90,000 on the sheet. Is that the amount that's in addition to what CDBG funds and PLHA? It's on the wintry nights?

Right, so the amount is actually, is it the 90,000 in additional? Right, but I believe... That's correct. Yes, that's one of the ones being removed. Sorry, from our earlier discussion. There's so many numbers, I'm sorry. Yeah, so the 90,000 on attachment B, that was one of the ones that was on here that is actually funded from other sources that's being adjusted in the fiscal year 2016 budget.

Just to be clear to your question, the CDBG, what we have funded from the community development block grant was 20,000. So if you're talking, did I hear 90,000 above and beyond that? Correct. So like 110,000, 20,000 coming from the community developed block grant.

Okay, so chart A on page five is the current draft budget after additional adjustments made. As I stated, it will not include the reduction in the Homekey Plus funding. That'll come back on the 9th. But it does incorporate the master fee projected increases in the community and economic development department. The public hearing for the adoption of the master fee is actually being held this evening. Of note, although council consensus was to increase police sworn staffing to 117 in fiscal year 27 and the prior draft included the addition of 12 police officer positions as trainees in the amount of $631,464. In speaking with the police department, the chief and current police recruitment status and police trainees in the pipeline. There's no feasible way to get an additional 12 police officer trainees in the academy during fiscal year 27, and as soon as they would be able to have academy slots is in early fiscal year 28. Thus, we've removed the 631,464 from the draft fiscal year 27 budget, so this represents 105 funding, and the police chief is available to answer any questions or discuss this further. If you'd like me.

Yeah, thanks for coming down, Chief. You might have a question or two.

So on the staff report, it says police chief has said there's no feasible way. Why is that the situation?

Because we're not even to 105 yet. We're at 85, which is 20 under that. So I would have to fill 20 vacancies before I could even touch the next 12. Currently in the academy, we had an academy start today with four. I have five in Contra Costa and one more in Alco, that puts us at 10. We only have four spots reserved in the next two summer academies coming up, so that's eight. And then we don't have tentative dates for the end of the year, beginning of the year academies yet. And we only have eight people in the pool.

And so what's the time to actually have a person go through the academy, pass the academy, go through all the checks and balances and come to work for the city of Antioch?

So if someone were to get hired right now today, we would be looking at putting them in an academy later this year. So they would have three or four months before the academy even starts. When the academy starts, it's six months. All the academies are pretty much the same. They're right around the six-month mark. From that six-month mark, they come back. Then they will count in our totals as an officer. But now they're in field training. And field training, the post minimum is four months, and the maximum could be up to a year for that training. So when they are able to get signed off on all their post dimensions for FTO, then they are cut loose and assigned to a patrol team. So in essence, for us to touch that 12 that you all are talking about, I would have to hire 20 officers before I could even get into that 12.

Okay, so we looked at 105 officers this coming fiscal year. Is that doable or not doable?

If all of our 10 in the academy make it now, we have eight more spots reserved in the next two academies. It's possible. But anyone that starts an academy after today's academy that started today, we're not going to see them on the books until after the next calendar year.

And just figuratively, how many officers normally retire or go out on disability on an annual basis, just a rough number?

Well, looking at us in the last five years or just the overall average, I would say two to three is normal. I think the good news is the department's really young, and out of the entire department, you're only talking about two retirees this year who could potentially retire.

Because I know that when we established the 117, that really is the point that we wanted to get to. And maybe we were overestimating and overly optimistic. But in reality, because I'm sure people And the press will attack us that we've lowered this number, but in reality, this is an aggressive, doable approach to try to achieve 105 sworn officers by the end of fiscal year 26-27.

Yeah, and we've been working closely with HR, who's been awesome, helping us put lists together, put SME reviews together, and put testings together so we can get to that number. And it kind of ebbs and flows. Sometimes it's high, sometimes it's low. We do our best to get people through the process, get people in the process, and see where they shake out, if we can move them forward or not. So it's not for lack of trying.

OK, so on chart A. When we take a look at 26-27 proposed revenue, it's approximately $100 million. Expenditures are $106 million, but police services and animal services account for approximately $63 million. So our public safety, which includes animal services, represents about 63-65% of the overall budget.

Sounds right? Yeah.

Which means that all other services, all other services, get one-third of the money, and the police department gets two-thirds of the money. And so I do think, you know, when people start to attack us that we're not hiring enough or doing enough for public safety, I think the facts speak for themselves. Two-thirds of our budget goes to public safety. So I just want to... You don't have to respond. I just want to make a comment. Because sometimes it does get... you know, a little tiring to hear people criticize us that we don't establish the police officers as our top priority and yet two thirds of our budget goes to police services.

And can I add to that as well, because I know Chief talked about the process after somebody's hired. But even before we hire a police officer or a police trainee, it's a long process. It's an average about a three-month process to even hire one police trainee. So from the time that they apply, as they go through multiple steps and requirements that are required by post, we end up, again, about a three-month on average that it takes to even hire them before an academy even starts.

And I think we did a breakdown early last year where from application to off of training a year and a half.

I just wanted you to kind of elaborate from when the post goes out for your recruiting to when they get hired. Even if, let's say, 100 people apply, can you kind of talk through that, how that 100 gets to, like you said, could be two or eight?

Yeah, that's fine. The fortunate thing about working with HR so closely is we've been hiring open continuous, so it never closes. It's always open. When HR gets a pool of people, of candidates, regardless of the size, hey, we have enough people to put a test together. We've been testing every other month, which is pretty good because a lot goes into putting the testing panels together and getting people rated and getting staff to be able to come and help. So if somebody gets the initial interview after their initial application goes in, then they get a ranking. And then from the ranking, they get moved into backgrounds. Obviously, we can't put everyone into backgrounds because we pay for that. So we work our way down the list until we get another list. And it's just a continual flow of working down the list, putting people into backgrounds. Some people, and I think this is where there's a lot of confusion, is people think, oh, I go into backgrounds. I'll be done in two weeks. No. You basically have to summarize your whole life over the course of about 60 to 70 pages of your work history, your schooling, friends, family, relatives, acquaintances, and then someone has to go verify, hey, this is true and correct, what kind of person you are. We've seen backgrounds go anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months. Not everyone is super thrilled about putting their life down on paper. And for some people, it takes a long time, because they're trying to remember things. They have to get documents. If they've moved around, they have to get documents from schools they went to, from colleges they've graduated from. If there's any kind of legal proceedings, that needs to be part of the background package too. So it's a lot of work for these candidates to put the backgrounds together. Then a background investigator will provide a summary, hey yes, hey no, this is what I found, make a decision, and then we move that person onto the next stage, which is medical psych. So then they get scheduled for a medical exam, a psych exam and a polygraphic examination. And it's not always, and I think the HR direct slash acting city manager can attest to this, if I finish today, hey, I'm ready to do my medical tomorrow. Hey, we don't have an appointment for you for four weeks. So every step of the process, it's not instant. It takes some time. I think even when we were moving fast on it, I think the fastest we could get someone through the process was like three months. And that was trying to pre-schedule what we could, trying to reserve spots where we could based on early recommendations. But it still takes time because when you're dealing with doctors for the medical, when you're dealing with the people that we use for the psych or for the polygraph, people cancel, people reschedule, your slot gets moved, you have people who don't make it through. So it's always kind of a constant because we're not the only ones in the hiring process right now. It's every agency and every agency kind of uses the same groups of people for the same services. So you kind of have to get in where you can fit in, where you can get the appointment. So that also adds to the length of time it takes to get somebody hired. Then somebody makes it through all of those because it's not all at once, it's in stages because you don't want to move and schedule someone for a medical and a psych if they can't pass a background. So one thing is dependent on another thing, draws it out, and then you get to the point where you are ready to offer somebody a job, and, well, I wanna give two weeks notice, I wanna give a month's notice, I need to take some vacation time first, so then you have to navigate the start date, which, for the most part, we see a couple of weeks, but we've seen it go a month, a month and a half, depending on the candidate, and then they get their start date. And then they start at the police department. And if there's not an academy for a couple months, we like to bring them in and do some pre-academy training, get them exposed, help build up their foundation of how to write reports, how to work the radio, just some basic stuff. So when they go to the academy, it's not foreign to them. We've had that last three or four months before an academy starts, because it just depends on how we catch the cycle or how many spots we have reserved in an academy. The academies out in the Bay Area have been very accommodating to us and other agencies where they just roll over the reserve spots for us every academy. So we always have a minimum of two or four or six. But we are, because we don't have our own academy, we are playing... second string to the sheriff's departments who are really ramped up recruiting and hiring themselves and they're taking all the priority spots for their personnel first and kind of giving all the other agencies hey this is what's left you're next up on the waiting list essentially and you got four spots do you want them or not and if we have people it used to be we could pre-flight academies hey we think we'll have six give us six spots if we don't have names three weeks before the academy spots they give our spots away So our hiring process has to be tight. We have to have names. We like to have a concurrent pool of people to pick from to move forward. So when it comes time for the academy to ask, hey, you have four spots. Your spot on the wait list is up. How many people do you have? We have three people. What are their names? What are the odds we can get four? It looks like we have someone who will be finishing right around the time we need to give a name. Sometimes they'll give us a little leeway, but sometimes they won't.

Well, thank you for that. I think the public needs to hear that it's a process from when somebody applies to when they actually are on the street. And it's an intense process. It's not like somebody applies and 30 days later they're hired and they're on the street in a car. So I think a lot of times the public needs to hear that, because sometimes they think, oh, we're holding you up, and it's no, people are going through process, and we want quality people. And so there's tests and evaluations that they have to get through to be ready to work here in Antioch. So thank you for explaining that process, because I think a lot of people don't really understand it, or just have a misunderstanding of how that process works.

Yeah, and you're welcome. And all the post dimensions are laid out on post website. So I know a lot of people, we pre-flight people when they start, hey, get on post website, pull down a sample background, start filling it out. So I think for people who don't know, if you're bored and you want to know, go and pull up a sample background and see how detailed it really is, because it's a lot of information. Thank you. You're welcome. Samara?

Yes. I was just going to say, one, I appreciate that it takes time. is we wanna make sure that the selection process, the background, all of the, that goes into the training and background, that we're getting the right people. So I understand and appreciate the time that it takes. I recall, I believe it was in May, the summer of 24, at that time there was like 50 officers, roughly. and now you're up to about what, 84, 86, somewhere in that range? 85. 85, so that's a pretty significant movement in the positive direction, even though it takes time. So I do think that we definitely want to fully staff our police department, but understanding the process the duration of time it takes. I think it's time well spent to make sure that we get quality people on board to serve our community, especially with the direction, the training that you're leading in our department as we move forward with new officers coming on, very diverse, different backgrounds who want to do, are very interested in doing community policing. I think all of that stuff's good. I think the people that we bring on need to be prepared to do that kind of work.

Thank you.

100% agree. You're welcome. Thank you.

Chief, what's the attrition rate you're seeing these days between when someone starts in the academy and makes it onto the street at the end of the day? what percentage would you say actually go the full, use these 18 spots for example, how many of those would you expect based upon your current experience would end up? Half. Okay, so.

And I think we did a study with HR last year because we wanted to look at our numbers and see how we were tracking compared to everyone else, and it's typically half, you lose half the group at every stage. And I think when we pulled the numbers, we were 53 or 54 overall, and 20 or 21 successful completion of FTO. So we were kind of right in the area of what the average is across the state.

So when you're saying we need, or not you're saying, we're trying to get to 105 officers, or 105 sworn, that would mean that you'd almost have to put 40 through the academy, for example, to end up with 20 new officers, correct?

Correct, but hopefully we won't have to put 40 through the academy, but yeah, that's what it would take. We've had a lot of luck in the last year, our academy graduates, especially those that we get in-house who can do a little training before the academy starts, are more prepared than when we have people for a short period of time or no time at all.

Okay, perfect. Any other questions for Chief?

No? I meant to say it early. I want to applaud you and your effort of really working on regional partnerships, because you talked about the different academies, the Sheriff's Academy. I think one time we were having a conversation, you were talking about an academy up in Sacramento or something? We've used both of them up there.

Yeah, we have great partnerships with Alameda County Sheriff's Academy. They've been very accommodating to us for the last couple years, and the same with Contra Costa County Sheriff's Academy. We've utilized Sacramento County Sheriff's Academy, who are fantastic, as well as Sac City PD, best academy in the world, because that's where I went. And we've had a lot of success reaching out to the other academies. We've had loose conversations with Evergreen, Santa Rosa, Delta, and oddly enough, Riverside, who all said, whatever you guys need, if you can't get people in and you need to find a house for them, we can make something work. So I think that's important, especially when we're trying to get a lot of people through the academies having options for when our spots are full. Because the last thing we want is a trainee sitting somewhere waiting for an academy for six or seven months.

So again, yeah, thank you for your, you're just creating all those partnerships to help get a lot of these people through the academy. So I just wanted to make sure I said thank you for that.

You're welcome. And if we send folks out of town, there's an additional cost to that, correct? Room and board them if they're up in South or down in Riverside or something like that?

Yeah, there's an additional cost depending. Depending on where we go, we like Riverside as an option because it's included in the cost and they're there the whole time and it's significant cost savings. Then trying to get a hotel or rent out an Airbnb, And then they're living on site with other academy mates. So it kinda just depends on where we go, what the housing options are. We've been fortunate, the times we've used Sacramento, half of the people we sent there were already living there. And it just, we got a little creative with our recruiting. Where hey, if we're gonna send people to this academy, maybe we should, move some of our recruiting to that area and see if we can get people from the area that want to relocate after the academy. And we've had a little bit of luck with that, definitely some cost savings. Okay, thank you. You're welcome.

All right.

Okay, next, in terms of recreation vacancies, council had requested a look at two existing vacancies in the recreation department and determined which could potentially be frozen. The acting city manager, myself, met with Director Wright and it was noted that two staff will soon be on temporary leave. And due to potential training and safety issues, it's imperative that there's adequate staffing during these absences. Director Wright proposed to underfill the recreation supervisor position with the recreation coordinator during fiscal year 27 and freeze or pause hiring of the coordinator position at the senior center for six months. This will provide salary savings of approximately 120,000 in fiscal year 27 and result in a reduction of the recreation subsidy. Fiscal year 28 projections include the reestablishment of the recreation manager position as a promotional opportunity. So this has been built into the fiscal year 27 budget. And then in addition, the acting city manager evaluated the human resources manager vacancy and proposes, as was mentioned during the last study session, to underfill the manager position with a promotional human resource analyst. And then freeze the human resource specialist spot vacated as a result of the promotion during fiscal year 27. But then reestablishing the manager position in fiscal year 28, which will of course be evaluated when we begin the evaluation for fiscal year 28 budget. so budget adjustments incorporated into the draft since may 13th are on the next page on page four as you can see we made an additional 3.136 million in adjustments as a result of the last budget meeting and some additional reductions total prior adjustments that are in attachment a which have represented before were just over 7.3 million. So we've made $10,485,141 in budget adjustments in the budget presented this evening. As stated, we'll be doing some further tightening. We know we're gonna be reducing by approximately $1 million for the changes in the public safety and community resources budget for the home key and moving out those expenditures that are funded with CDBG. So we are making leaps and bounds in our deficit, attacking our deficit in fiscal year 27. You can see on chart A, after these reductions, We have a remaining deficit after using budget stabilization funds of 1,643,141. We've got a million that's gonna be coming, showing on the 9th, so that's gonna get it to just about 643,000. And we'll be talking with departments this week to see how much more we can get that closer to just being the 5 million budget stabilization transfers. So it's a result of these budget reductions, but also the increase in the fees from community and economic development. It's important to note, though, that these are measures that we have in place for 26, 27, projecting everything returns to normal in 27, 28 at this point. And these also do not include any COLAs for staff as we're still in the negotiation process with bargaining units. have nothing finalized or proposed at this point. So that could affect any numbers for fiscal year 27. So the plan would be to bring back a final draft budget on June 9th after we finish talking with departments this week to have a final draft presentation for council on June 9th. And then in case there's any last minute things that need to be included, bring back a final budget for adoption, which will revise 2526 and adopt 2627 on June 23rd.

All right, thank you. Any other questions before we open this up to public comment?

Okay, are there any public comment? Regarding study session SM1, we have no public comments. All right. Yes, Council Member Wilson.

Yes, so thank you, Ms. Merchant, and I thank you staff for working really hard on this. Going back to the frozen positions, and Ms. Merchant, you touched on this a little bit, but if you can explain more, of the frozen positions, Which of the frozen positions create the highest operational risk if we extend them beyond fiscal year 27? Because I think if council has an idea of what positions need to come back, we can kind of proactively be thinking, how are we going to make adjustments for that?

I think when we, as stated, we plan on coming back in August and kind of starting like here's the base budget. We'll show you what the projections are fully staffed, but we'll come back with the base budget. And then as council stated, they wanna start kind of layering upon that based on priorities. At that point, we'll be able to provide a more definitive of these positions. As you stated, what would have the most impact continuing to freeze or not, so. if we could continue that discussion in August.

Okay, it'd be good for us to know so we can kind of start planning for that. Yes. And are there any opportunities for operational restructuring in the future versus just freezing positions?

And we are gonna be working with the departments as finance director mentioned. We're gonna continue to meet with them to see if there are other ideas or thoughts, how we can look at positions and whether we need to fill them or not. That is something that we're gonna continue evaluating.

Okay, and then I know in the past we spoke about this. I don't know if it ever got off the ground, but an operational assessment. Is that still moving forward? So we can know operationally where we're doing well, where we're not doing well, where are the holes, what positions we need. Just curious when that's gonna be coming back.

Yes, we do have a report that we can share with the city council, but it's not completed for all of the departments. It was completed for a few departments, but we did not complete the full city.

Mr. Mayor, I'd love to see that come back as a full operational assessment and be presented so not only we can hear, public can also hear. We're taking this very seriously and where we can adjust and make some corrections. Yes. Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

Yes. Mr. Mayor, so approximately 18 months ago, when new city council was sworn in, we had a $54 million budget. And it looks like in fiscal year 26, 27, we actually made break even, so to speak. We are using $5 million out of the rate stabilization fund. The fear is the following year, 27, 28, when you take a look at a $16 million budget, And that is before any coalesce or contract negotiations. So that could be increased even by more. So the takeaway from my perspective is that for a city government, there are really only two sources of primary revenue, and that is property taxes, which we can't do much about. The second is economic development. And frankly, in my opinion, other people may not share it, City of Antioch has not had an economic development plan for years. And so the takeaway for me is that yes, we may be at zero, maybe within two or three million dollars, we still have things to work out. But I think we need to absolutely prioritize economic development. We have three vacancies in economic development. We don't have an economic development director. And I think that has to become one of our highest priorities to recruit, to hire knowledgeable, experienced individuals in economic development, realizing whoever is hired, he or she is not going to perform miracles But we need to have a realistic plan that begins to increase sales tax revenue to the city. Because when you take a look at chart A, under the 1% sales tax for fiscal year 26, it's approximately $20 million. In fiscal year 27, it's approximately $20 million. In fiscal year 27, 28, it's a little bit more than $20 million. It is stagnant. And the public is making a cry for quality of life and bringing new businesses and opportunities into our community. And for me, economic development, often people begin to talk about retail. Well, the reality is most of those jobs pay minimum wage. They don't usually have any benefits attached, and the longevity is usually about a year to a year and a half. From my perspective, economic development means creating jobs that have outstanding salaries, benefits, career, and to get them off of Highway 4 and having people actually live and work and be involved in our community. That's what economic development means to me. So this has been a subject that has, frankly, been long ignored. And I would hope that the takeaway is that working with the city manager and community development and other affected staffs that we come back, hopefully in a 30-, 45-day period, for this next fiscal year and saying these are the type of things we are going to do to be laser focused and with that you know there are a lot of community partners that we can reach out to do we involve the chamber of commerce the downtown antioch association celebrate antioch and others they can be a part of this but my underlying ask or request is that we prioritize this, we talk about this, we develop plans, and then we begin to implement it as aggressively as we possibly can, particularly with hiring an economic development director or manager. So that's my takeaway in this budget. We have 12 months. to start turning some of this stuff around. Otherwise, I hate to say this, in fiscal year 27, 28, you will see radical reductions in services, employees, and things of that sort, and none of us wanna do that.

I just say, Mr. Mayor, again, with Mayor Pro Temporetto's comments along with those lines, A grant writer is written in there as well. We need to, either we're working with Townsend and Associates, which I've seen that there's potential funding coming from the federal government and from the state of California, from those partnerships, and potentially if we can hire a grant writer who works solely for the city, possibly that could bring in enough funding that it pays for itself, in a sense. So that's one of those three positions I think you're referencing.

Yes, and an update on the grant writers. So we are working on creating the job descriptions. You'll be seeing that soon.

Ms. Merchant, on the chart A, where we show the 25-26 revenues at 98.9 million, basically 99 million, and then in 26-27, it's at 99.7, but there was the statement that we're increasing by $1.8 million approximately in new revenue from fees from the fee study. Why is that number only jumping up? It looks like kind of all the lines stay about the same.

Well, it's the investment income because we are projected to have a lower fund balance cash on hand. If it works out this way, we won't be earning as much interest income. So you can see that's down almost a million dollars. However, we aren't spending as quickly and most of it happens say near the end of the year. Some other savings interest income will end up being higher because we're not drawing down on the cash balance in the general fund as quickly.

So where would those increased revenues be showing in the line?

So the increased revenues are in the licenses and permits, and then also in the current service charges.

So under license and permits, it shows 4.3 million this year, 4.2 million next year.

Yes, so the 4.2, the number was lower for 26-27 and got bumped up to 4.2 because we were projecting lower building permits in fiscal year 26-27 than in 25-26.

Okay, understood. And then I just want to commend staff and all the hard work that's been done by everybody. Taking another $10.5 million is a lot, then another million dollars. We're at 11.5 million plus the 1.8 in revenue. but there's been some significant work done. As Mayor Pro Tem said, we started at 24, but 27 million for one year and now we're down to $6 million or hopefully $5 million for this year. That's an amazing amount of work that's been done on this and so I just want to thank everybody who's been involved in that. I know you're actually working on some more, kind of tightening the belt a little bit more and seeing where other areas we can save. Just want to appreciate everybody for taking this very seriously and realizing that we're all working together on arriving at something that is going to be sustainable for the city. So thank you. All right, if I don't have anything else on this item, we will conclude this and we will move on to item SM2, presentation of the draft five-year CIP improvement program 2026 through 2031. Ms. Acting City Manager.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. So we have our Public Works Director, City Engineers, Scott Bunting here, who's gonna present the draft five-year capital improvement program budget.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council. Happy to be back here again. First, I'll just start off by thanking some people. Basically, my capital improvement team, Laurie Medeiros, Robert Pizarro, Mitchell Loving, Paul Fuentes. I'd also like to thank Julie Varey, as well as Carlos Cepeda. Got to thank the IS group in the back, who's helping us out all the time. Of course, Finance, who's helped us put this together, and all the departments who helped me during this thing. Okay. We started this process, actually we started this process back on April 21st when we had our first workshop regarding these. Made some adjustments prior to us getting into the actual draft presentation on the 20th of May. I went to the planning commission. They did confirm that our CIP is in conformance with our general plan. The day after that, last Thursday on the 21st, we presented to Park and Recreation who did review it in terms of Park and Recreation projects. Today on the 26th, this is the presentation of the draft CIP. It's going to look a lot similar. There's the workshop that we did previously, so feel free to stop me at any point if you have any questions. But like I said, it should look very similar. Capital Improvement Department has the primary objectives. We provide professional technical engineering services. We provide support to all city departments. We provide leadership with implementation of federal, state, and local programs. Number of expenditures that go into capital. This is broken down by facilities of interest here. You'll see in the roadway over a two year period, we're looking at about $40 million. First when we talk about this, first of all, only 27 is what's proposed. So you're looking at a revised 25, 26, and then your proposed 26, 27. That's what we're looking at in terms of this fiscal year. Anything beyond 27 is just for planning purposes. But just judging by these, looking at the first couple years, you can see within the roadways, we have expenditures of approximately $40 million. This has to do with pedestrian access improvements, some pavement resurfacing, the L Street project, and median island beautifications, among other things. Following that, the water system, of course. We always just try to put in a lot of money, investments back into our water system. About $21 million water main replacements. We'll be looking at the electrical upgrades for the water treatment plant, some reservoir upgrades, as well as looking into our solids handling techniques that we use at the water treatment plant. And the final touch base on just community facilities. These include the work of Nick Rodriguez, work over at Peru Park, including resurfacing the pools and the deck replacement, as well as phase two of the city hall remodel. Funding for capital projects come from a variety of areas, capital improvement fund, enterprise funds. We'll talk about these a little bit more. Of interest is our special revenue funds. That's our gas tax fund, Measure J, the national pollutant discharge elimination systems. You'll see that there's about $5 million worth of general fund money also in there. You're also looking about $15 million worth of unfunded projects between 26 and 27. A little bit more into the funding sources, capital improvement funds, a couple old ones. The Assessment District 2731, which is your Lone Diamond Assessment District, and then Assessment District 26, which is your Hillcrest Assessment Districts. The Capital Improvement Fund is another area where money gets transferred into, as well as there is an annexation funding agreement between us and the county regarding the annexation of Northeast Antioch. Also, our enterprise funds, things you're probably very familiar with, the sewer fund and the water fund. In addition to those, there is a sewer enterprise, sewer system improvement fund, as well as a water improvement fund. Those are capital funds. Those are due to capacity brought on by other development. Those funds are used to increase the capacity within our systems. Some other stuff, we're getting into these grants that we're looking at. So the Highway Safety Improvement Program, we're currently utilizing this for a couple projects. We are improving 69 signals throughout the city. We have a grant for approximately $2.5 million from this HSEP fund. as well as approximately $800,000 for some pedestrian crossings. They're called hawk signals, similar to the ones that you might find on Laurel. They were put in just to the east of Kanata Valley. The one Bay Area grant, another one, there's two different grants there. There's a two and a three. Phase two of this grant gave us approximately $1.5 million for the first phase of L Street. And then there's approximately $2.5 million versus funding from the OBAG three that'll go towards our countywide smart signal project. Real cool project that's gonna increase conductivity on Lone Tree Way, past Lowe's, basically between Empire and High Dorn. as well as over on the Summersville Auto Center corridor in between, I believe it's Fairview and Sycamore, that will then utilize some better technology to help for getting traffic through that area. Super excited about that. We've been working on those areas for quite a while. Go down to the Safe Streets for All. This was a very important grant for us. This is one where we partnered with the county, CCTA is. This provides $13 million for the second phase of the L Street project, as well as $4 million towards the bicycle garden project. special revenue funds the arpa funds will be ending this year we also have the delta fair property funds those are for parks built prior to 1980 that can be utilized for that you have development impact fees one-time charges from developers that due to increased growth they provide us with some funding the loan excuse me east lone tree specific plan benefit district sorry it's a special up there but it's a specific plan It's an area bounded by Oakley, Brentwood, and East Antioch Creek. We're looking to utilize this hopefully in the future for some improvements out in the Slatton Ranch area. And then the last two, Gas Tax Measure J, those are typically used for roadway funding. Some more of the funding sources. As you can see, funding comes from all over the place, and so do the projects, but here's our National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, typically used for storm channels, trash capture devices, other clean water aspects that we have. Park and Loo Fund, provided by developers in lieu of building parks. Our Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account, that RMRA, that's also SB1, we utilize that for roadway rehabilitations. And then your Tidelands AB 1900, that's gonna be used to support our dredging activities over at the marina. So projects we completed over the last year. Start at the top, that Amtrak station improvements, I have to say it's beautiful out there. Our deputy directors have put in a lot of time in that area. It looks really nice. I think they did a great job in there constructing that fair area as well as separating it from the crosswalk for the sidewalk out there. So a nice park that we've created. Also, the downtown Wi-Fi, as everybody probably knows by now, that's been put into place and is operational here in the downtown area. Our utility boxes, all kind of all over town, did a lot of painting on those. I think that those look beautiful. Neighborhood traffic calming project comes out quite frequently. In this case, we installed, it was eight speed bumps and one raised crosswalk. Work occurred on Gentrytown, Desiree. Country Hills and Asilomar. We do have another project for that in the works. Pavement plugs, leveling courses, that's our entry work that we do on our pavement rehabilitation within the streets. It's typically followed up by a Cape Seal, which is a surface treatment over the asphalt. And finally is our brackish, not lease, but finally, is our brackish water desalination project. Shown there for $96 million, that would have been your construction cost, closer to probably 116 for total cost of the project. But a very awesome project. We spent a lot of time doing tours at our water treatment plant because of this project. We're getting a lot of outside agencies that want to come see it. Not only our pump station, which has been rebuilt and moved onshore, but But the RO system itself, a lot of interest in there. I've got to say that our water treatment plant superintendent, Marcus Woodland, does an excellent job up there, making himself available for these different people to come see the plant. I think it's important to spread what Antioch's doing out there. It really gives our city a good name for what we're doing out there. There's a lot of interest in this desalination. Some general fund projects that we have coming in the future. City Hall remodel, our second phase of that, which would be the first floor and the second floor. That's in process during the design. We have work over at Pruitt that's in the Pruitt Water Park that's in the process. A resurfacing pool over there is doing some concrete work also. We're working on the installation of some electrical for that PD radio simulcast tower. That has to do with the e-bricks. emergency personnel broadcasts that we have out here. I've been working for quite a while. I've been working with the police department as well as the EBRICS folks to try to get this tower put into place. We're bringing in some power from further down Walton. Met with PG&E recently trying to get that installed to move forward with the electrical at that site. We also have the Marchetti Park, the renovations of Marchetti Park. It's getting ready to just get started, but it is a general fund project. Some of these other projects that are in progress for us right now, I'll start with our park facility rehabilitation, something that we're looking at moving forward with. There was a list of parks, we talked about this before, kind of what were the playgrounds that we were looking at. Looking at doing the ones at Community Park first, there's two playgrounds up there that'll probably be top of our list. Chaparral Park would be next, Harbor Park, followed by Meadow Creek, Montero, and Williamson Ranch would be the order that we'd be looking at doing the playground placement. Nelson Ranch is another playground where we'd be looking at doing some work, but the playground is in good shape. It's the safety matting underneath the playground that we need to replace for that playground. Also on this list is a community garden, community bike garden. This is under design right now. We've done some geotechnical work out there coming along. The Cape Seal project that we have for this year, which would be the surface treatment, this goes in the Jacobson and the Mount Hamilton areas where we've recently done the roadway rehabilitation. And then we do have a traffic calming program down at the bottom there, similar to what we did with the bumps that we spoke of before. This is scheduled to install 13 speed bumps throughout the city. Currently, the streets we're looking at would be Sunset Drive, East Tregalis, Wildflower, West Medill, D Street, East 19th Street, Sunset Lane, and Candlewood Way. So there would be a total of 13 on those streets. At the bottom, we have L Street. We're right in the middle of phase one, finishing up the accessibility and concrete repairs. We'll be looking to do a surface treatment out there and stripe it here in the near future. More things we have going on. Start at the top with our street lighting improvements, something that we expect in the next couple of weeks to be getting the materials to start that project. This, again, is the first phase of this project. We're looking to go north of the freeway, kind of the western city limits and around the Cavallo area. That would be the area that's confined by this first phase, which future phases will will be put out there. There is some unfundedness to the future project, so I'm sure in the future it'll be something we'll be discussing. Second on the list is a Sycamore traffic calming. Just talked to our BPAC last week, went over that project. So they had a few questions on it. We'll be looking to roll that thing out pretty quickly. It is a good project. It was nice to hear people did receive it fairly well from the BPAC.

Scott, what's BPAC's name?

Sorry, that's our Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee. For us, the Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee is our Park and Rec Committee. It could be a separate one, but the city a while back chose to make the Park and Rec Commission also be our BPAC. The signal improvements. Another project that we're working on, we'll be replacing the lenses and pedestrian countdowns, doing some reflective backpates. That's on 69 signals throughout the city. It'll be a major improvement to what we have. I briefly spoke about the county smart signal project. Really looking forward to that one to get going. Are the two initial areas that we talked about over on Summersville as well as Lone Tree Way. It'll be followed by additional stuff throughout the county. Two things on here, three things actually. We've started or are in the middle of some master plans. We've got our sewer master plan, which is a little bit overdue. Water master plan is happening also, as well as our urban water management plan. All three of those are currently being worked on through the capital department. And then towards the bottom here, the solids handling over at the water treatment plant. Just doing another analysis of it, we currently use a rental centrifuge out there. A number of years back, we took a look at to see what was the best, most economical way for us to handle the solids. At that point, it was to stay with the rental equipment. It's prudent to take another look at it, make sure that we're still doing the right thing with the rental aspect of this could go away and see if it's the best thing for our facility. So we're looking into things like a screw press or screw press, belt press, or possibly a centrifuge of something that we might build out the side if it penciled in. Projects that we've added, we've added the PD real-time crime center. Again, better monitoring, gives us some real-time information. We'll need to update the space and improve some communication for that project to happen. Currently, Slatton Ranch Road, the first phase, currently slotted from Wicklow to Wild Horse. This would utilize some of that East Lone Tree specific plan money as well as money to do that project. Also added to the bottom of this would be the Carnegie Library renovation, which would hopefully improve some ADA accessibility over and make that facility a little bit more useful for the city. I'd be glad to answer any questions that you might have.

All right, thank you, Mr. Bunting. Do we have any public comment?

Yes, we have six public comments. Can we please have Joy Motz followed by Rich and Kim Statlander.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Council Member Freitas, you had a vision when you spearheaded the A Street extension. It was a wonderful idea and it opened up the beautiful view of our greatest asset, the San Joaquin River, for all entering downtown from one of our major thoroughfares. It really is stunning when you drive down the extension and the view and the expanse of the river opens up before you. On some fall days, it looks like a lake. or you may catch a large container ship passing by that seems so close you could touch it. It always amazes me how many cars drive down that extension and through downtown. I truly believe many of them do that just to catch the view of the river. But also, I'm always hopeful that they may stop at one or two of our downtown businesses or restaurants. But unfortunately, most do not stop. And as you know, our downtown businesses struggle to struggle, continue to struggle in summer, fall or failing from a lack of foot traffic. Despite our efforts with events or a downtown association, there is just no there there. But what if we created a there? What if you could see our vision, the one we have shared with you for so many years? where you could drive down the A Street extension and around that curve that would open up to a beautiful community space with an outdoor stage for concerts and festivals or multicultural events. Can you see it? A community space that takes advantage of the expansive views of our river and where our residents could gather and possibly, possibly more cars would stop. And maybe hundreds more would get to know this space for summer concerts or outdoor theater or community gatherings. And suddenly, maybe downtown Antioch becomes a destination place, completely changing its current perception, a game changer for our downtown businesses and restaurants. And I know not all of you are on council when the decision was made to protect the Beattie Parcel for an event space and held two large community meetings for its design. But a commitment was made and now it's up to this council to honor that commitment. You have this opportunity right now with up to $8 million available to cities with the California Statewide Park Development and Community Revitalization Program grant. This grant is specifically for underserved communities such as downtown Antioch, and much of that work that needs to be done for this grant has already been done. Why would you pass up on an opportunity to invest $8 million to help revitalize downtown? And by doing so, support and honor what many residents have begged you to envision for more than 30 years. Thank you.

Rich Statlin.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, which is famously but incorrectly quoted by Albert Einstein. Rita Mae Brown, a civil rights and feminist writer, actually deserves credit for this statement. Sadly, it seems that anti-oxy elected leaders have been in a deep rut for decades and only knows that they can sell property It's especially disappointing that every neighboring community has the vision to invest in their downtown with town squares that host events and generate business revenue. We have been intending in spending money at Concord's Thursday events for decades. Concord's Todos Santos Plaza was terrible, but improvements have attracted thousands of people on those Thursday nights. We have that solution. You saw it in the background. And you also agreed to it in 2021. Let's be honest, Antioch's downtown has not been thriving. Our reputation needs much improvement. We elected you to have vision, to become creative. Selling a Waterview property lacks vision. If you leaders are incapable of performing with vision, then please be honest with us and resign so that we can elect others that will help us, help Antioch to thrive, not just to survive. I suggest that you take credit for building our town square. and get your names on it, that sort of thing. Take the win and hey, even run for higher office. Thank you.

Kim Statlander followed by Connie Kumar.

Good evening, Mayor Bernal and City Council. I'm here tonight to ask you to reinstate the property at 3rd and East Streets known as the Beattie Lumberyard to its former designation as a capital improvement program site. Your decision to remove the yard from the CIP designation does not reflect community input. The City Council committed to the residents of Antioch several years ago to use that site as a town square. Many residents attended community input meetings to express what they wanted to see there. It is truly a betrayal to the residents and taxpayers of Antioch to renege on that commitment. Antioch has historically approved housing without keeping up with the necessary infrastructure to support growth. We are asking you to think outside the box this time, to envision what the yard property could be. We are not opposed to housing in any other parts of Rivertown, just not that space. And here are the reasons that are backed by study after study for using the yard as a town square. Safe outdoor spaces encourage walking, exercise, and access to fresh air for all ages of residents. Families gain access to opportunities for active play, resulting in a reduction of screen time. And who doesn't want that, right? Community spaces reduce isolation and build community ties. This space is right across the street from the senior center and could provide opportunities for gatherings and programming for seniors and residents of all ages. Green spaces are linked to lower stress, anxiety, depression, and there's a cognitive benefit in the brain for all ages. well-maintained public spaces reduce blight and unsafe activity and creates eyes on the street, making neighborhoods feel safer. Community-centered spaces increase neighborhood pride and involvement and provide affordable recreation to many who are struggling financially. It provides a space for cultural events and community celebrations. Green spaces reduce heat, improve air quality, improve storm water drainage, and also increase property values and support local businesses. Can housing do that for the Rivertown area? No, it can't. The yard is approximately the size of two city blocks. Ask yourselves how many residents in Antioch will benefit from housing there versus how many residents could benefit from a town square that overlooks our historic waterfront. Every other city around us has seen the benefit of creating a town square or community space in their downtowns. So should we. This is the perfect time and opportunity with a statewide park development and community revitalization grant. What excuse or reason could you possibly have for not trying to apply for funding for the build out of the yard property as a town square? Please do the right thing and stand by your commitment to the residents of Antioch. Thank you.

Connie Comar followed by Jennifer Hughes and Sherry Thompson.

I've been sitting too long. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. My name's Connie Comar and I live on the corner of 4th and D in the beautiful Victorian House with a great river view that I don't want to lose. I'm here because, Mr. Freitas, I've just heard, I don't know, it's just a rumor, what, that you want the lot, the Speedy lot, to do building on it. Maybe shops to help the downtown? Or is it apartments? No? Good. Then we're gonna do the yard the way we want it? No. Okay. If I've heard talks about apartments, apartments aren't good because the railroad, I hear the train every time it goes by and stuff, so that wouldn't last long. Besides, somebody said something about building really nice apartments there. Who's asking for really nice apartments in Antioch? I think apartments there would become Section 8 or whatever. It wouldn't be really nice. I don't think anybody can live there anyway because of the trains. And for downtown, downtown needs help. They do all the businesses there. The Campanile Theater is begging for donations to survive. I think we need to put some of this energy into the downtown and not building up Save the Yard. save the art like what Kim and Joy have said and Rick, that's what it's good for and stuff and it would make people happy and it would bring more people down here. that wanna go to the yard, to the concerts, to hear a nice band play. We had one a couple years ago. They put up a stage for the day. It might have been Fourth of July or it was some holiday, and it was really good. And I went homeless. People are afraid, I've heard it said, that the homeless people are gonna come to save the yard if we had a nice park there. But I've lived in this area 23 years in that house, And when we first moved there, there were a lot of homeless people walking the streets of that area in our neighborhood and stuff. But now, I never see a homeless person on our streets. We have families and moms and dads pushing the strollers with little kids. Is that for me?

Thank you, Connie. Thank you very much. Okay.

Anyway, there are no homeless around this area, except the river.

Can we have Jennifer Hughes and then Sherry Thompson?

Good evening, council members. I'm Jennifer Hughes, and I also live downtown on 5th Street. It's just a short three-block walk for me to see our beautiful river. And I'm here to ask that we return the Beatty Lumberyard project back to the CIP so that we can continue to work together on this dream of making a great community space and making downtown Antioch enhancing what we already have. It's a jewel down there. I love it. We constantly walk down to events that are held down there, like the Wine Walk and the barbecue stuff, and we walk down to eat at La Plaza Wella. It's a great restaurant that's been there for quite a bit, and Willow Park is down there for antique shopping. AND AS A GROUP OF CONCERNED COMMUNITY MEMBERS IN NOVEMBER OF 2021, WE MADE A PRESENTATION TO THE CITY COUNCIL. IT WAS SOMETHING THAT WE MADE TIME FOR. YOU GUYS INVITED US TO COME. YOU SAID YOU'D HAVE QUESTIONS. AND I PERSONALLY WORKED WITH OUR CHOICE AND SPEAKERS TO PREPARE THE POWERPOINT PRESENTATION. AND I KNOW THAT COUNCILMEMBER WILSON WAS THERE AND COUNCILMEMBER TORRIS WALKER WAS THERE WHEN WE DID OUR POWERPOINT PRESENTATION. AND I REMEMBER COUNCILMEMBER WILSON SAID THAT ONE OF THE THINGS THAT CONVINCED YOU to vote for it to remain a green space or to be a green space was one of the pictures in the PowerPoint presentation that was full of green trees and grass, and you just said that you felt peaceful looking at that, which would be so much nicer than what we have now, which is just a bunch of dirt, and it's been that way for way too long, like over 30 years. I don't even know how long. So there was a lot of serious discussion at that PowerPoint presentation, and you guys asked us questions, and we answered them, and you voted to make it a green space. And multiple community meetings were held after this to gather public opinion, and people took their time. gave their opinion and dreamed about what they could make there. And I'm just asking that we not throw out all that time and investment in our community away. It makes me feel like the city council doesn't take its own words seriously. And I realize you have budget issues to deal with. But if this could remain in the CIP in a way for it to be paid for, it could be found, we could continue working with you to help get this done. And I know that Joy and others have talked about the grant, so I won't repeat that. But it just makes me sad to have to repeat any of it. Because we spent hours and hours and hours and meetings coming here. and telling you what our vision was and now I feel like we just kind of have to do it all over again. The Fourth of July is a great example of how many people come down there. Tons of people come down to downtown Antioch and we have something worth coming down for. And just don't sell us short. Don't sell Antioch short. We could be great. And to quote a famous movie line, if you build it, they will come.

Sherry Thompson, followed by Leslie May.

Good evening, mayor and city council members. My name is Sherry Thompson, and I've been a resident of downtown for 25 years now. And the Beattie parcel has been a dirt lot the whole time. I'm not going to repeat things that the other ones have said. I'm coming up with a new topic for you guys that was promised to us back in 2012 when the Antioch boat ramp was replaced the Barber Price Park. I don't know if anybody remembers the Barber Price Park that used to be there. And so anyway, that was taken from us. And we were promised that another park would be put downtown. That has not happened yet. It's been 14 years and we've been waiting for that to be fulfilled. The yard was where that park and town square should have been. Residents spoke up, participated in the planning process, and the previous city council did promise that we could eventually put something there. It was even included in the city plans. Our community has waited long enough. Downtown families, children, and residents deserve a green space, a place to gather, and a park and a downtown square that serves the people who live here. So please keep it in the plan, thank you.

Leslie May.

Good evening, Council. You know, there's always a lot of promises made. But when you look at that lot, and I've been there a lot, I used to pass by there every single day when I was going to work before I got injured. That's not large enough to do much of anything with. What we do need out here is one of those, it's like a little hotel, but it's not the full-fledged type big, large hotel. It would be something that when people come to town, they don't have to go to Pittsburgh to try to find a place to stay, to attend a conference here, meet with city officials here in Antioch. They have, I think they call them boutique hotels, where it's just a small hotel with the parking where people could come. We don't have that here. This place is so far behind, there's no hotel here. We need that more than we need a park. There's parks up here in District 1, but maybe they don't want to go to them because they're in areas that they consider non-classy or whatever but there's a brand new park that's over there by sycamore area that we have you know um this thing of selective selectism i guess that's how you pronounce it but we have to have spaces for us spaces for them that's dead you're going to see it soon they may not think that's dead but it's dead that those days, those back in the day is over with. So we need to do something that's going to generate some income. You're crying about budget, budget? Put your money together and put a little boutique hotel right here with just, you know, parking for the people, they can park on the outside, around that area, that sort of thing. But another park or someplace where people can go and just walk through and grow. If you want to grow something, there's a lot over here between, what is this? West 3rd or 4th? West 4th, I think. No, West 3rd and West 4th. There's an old big stretch of land there that Antioch owns all those parcels. There's four parcels. Antioch owns three, and another man owns one. Go over there, plant something. I guarantee you nothing's going to grow just like you grow it over here because the water down here is horrible. We've already tested it. I had people come to my home. with two bouquets of flowers, brand spanking new, good bouquets. They put tap water from Antioch and then bottled water. Within one day, the bouquet, brand fresh new from Costco, was dead. So why would I want to park somewhere and you guys spend money on plants that won't even grow in this area? Because of the bad water and the bad air. So it's just ludicrous to me.

Mr. Becker?

So here's my three-minute report as an Antioch resident. The things that give me confidence. Staff members that can understand the city's budgetary struggles and build a capital program around those constraints, which in Antioch are large. staff members that can express to their community that while they wholeheartedly support green spaces, they once again understand Antioch's budgetary constraints and new facilities at this point would be a significant strain on the city's existing infrastructure. That for me as a community member is incredibly relieving. What's frustrating is seeing community members come out here and rally and support for a project where they call out dollars that are specifically meant for marginalized, underserved communities. What a slap in the face to a community. To present something like this and say this is meant for the residents over off of Cavallo, that don't have access to green space. To present something like this when Proserville Park on O Street doesn't even have a restroom, and we've heard council members talk time and time again about how many of our parks don't in specific communities. But I think what really stands out to me is if somebody truly has an understanding of the budget, the process, opportunity and the reality. How do you show up at a meeting and advocate for a new significant capital project like this when you were a part of a program that held an event at a park that is literally acknowledged in this capital program as an unfunded liability, and at one of your events that you were a part of, a community member snaps a photo of the slide at Williamson Ranch Park and says, great to see an event here at this park, but concerning to see bolts missing out of the slide. and that's one of your unfunded liabilities, and you show up here talking about drawing more dollars towards something else, save the yard or save the child that's gonna go down that slide when it fails?

We have no further public comments. All right, thank you. It's to the council now. Any questions or comments about CIP? Yes, please.

Thank you so much, Mr. Bundy, for all your hard work and the presentation. It was very, very informative. I'm excited about lighting. You know I am. I guess my question would be, How long have you seen unfunded projects sit on this CIP just from your time here in the city? Like a project that the city has committed to, but it has remained unfunded. What's the longest project you've seen? What's the time? Just pick one, like an example.

It's actually fairly recent that we even started including unfunded within the CIP. Maybe the last few years, possibly. Before that, if it wasn't funded, it didn't get in the capital. And then there was a decision made that the unfunded could actually lead for, here's some future stuff that people would be aware that we might want to put within the CIP. And they started adding some of those unfunded things. But like I say, up until, I would say, a few years ago, we didn't include unfunded projects within the CIP.

In 2021, I know the council voted to add the BD Lumberyard to the CIP, but as unfunded pending a community engagement process and survey to come back. Do you remember that?

Yes, we did such effort.

And the idea was that there were original proposals for the Biddy Lumberyard but they were created years ago and we wanted to add more community voice. We're a city of almost over 120,000 individuals and so we wanted to open up the dialogue to a larger populace and see if we can get more input on what people wanted the city to invest. I don't remember the outcomes of that community engagement coming back to this council, or did I miss it?

So I know that Public Works worked with the Recreation Department. So the initial design didn't come from the city. There was a thought, I believe, for having a park out there. And then we did go through the process with public engagement, had a couple public workshops. There was things that came out of that. I wasn't the keeper of that. I believe that it was out of the recreation, but it was previous. I'm not sure if Director Wright has that information. But there was engagement. There was discussion about it. There was two different workshops regarding it. And I don't recall what happened to that, if it went back to council or not.

It didn't come back. Is there anybody from Parks and Recreation available to let us know?

It may be one of those things that we might need to get back to you with some dates. It was a little while ago.

To let us know. Did the process get completed? Can it come back for discussion? Mr. Wright, how are you? You look snappy. Thank you. Any updates on the public engagement process related to the BD Lumberyard and the potential event space?

Yeah, I will have to talk with the former director. We're lucky enough to have the former parking right director I think that was in my younger stages to see where those plans went. But I do remember we had rounds of community engagement. I have to dig that up.

Nice. You say younger, young, young, younger. We age quickly in this city.

Yes, yes. I didn't have all this gray.

I think it would be important because I've been asking about that process, that community engagement process and for it to come back to the council. I think it would be important to come back so we can see what kind of input was brought to the process. So what happened? What really happened was it was an unfunded project added to the CIP. The only thing that was funded was the community engagement process. The potential of funding any potential project for green and event space was to get the results from that community engagement back. We also know that community engagement often comes to Antioch to die. We could put out surveys and out of almost 120,000 populists, we may get 300 people to complete the survey, which may not constitute a majority opinion on what need to happen on any particular space at any particular time. So I would like for that to come back whenever you all can hunt that information down and see if it is in a continued alignment with original proposals for the space. I also understand from conversations on council that there is an idea that there is unrealized potential for this piece of property in downtown Antioch. And that it could have a potential for economic development while also meeting the needs of community's desire for green space. So is there a potential to bring this, to actually place the Beattie Lumberyard back on the CIP, knowing it's unfunded, but with the opportunity for the potential of mixed use development that would include economic development opportunities as well as green space?

Yeah, so I would just like to note that my plan is to come back to the next council meeting because this grant is coming up and we do need to specify which location just so we can either.

The 80, wait, the 8,000, what was it? 8 million. The 8 million. And I believe that Mr. Becker said that that grant is for underserved. It is for underserved. To make improvements in green space in underserved communities. Right. And so when you're applying for grants for underserved communities, how are you defining an underserved community?

Yeah, so this grant has a tracker you can put in different locations, and it will tell you the poverty rate. It will tell you how many acres per thousand. And so when I was at the rec commission, there's about four parks that fit this description. The one park that fits the description the best is City Park. The second location is BD Lumberyard. But what you have to take into account is that BD Lumberyard, when you put the tracker down, half of the tracker is the river. The other half is the population of people that live behind it. So, you know, I'm on the record saying that, you know, I understand the fiscal needs of this city. I am a steward financially of parks, and I think it's best to repair what we currently have. I'm also open to listening to the community and seeing what they have to say, but I will want to bring this back to the council so we can have a full discussion so everybody can understand what this grant entails to make sure that we get as many points for all the criteria that we put out there so we have a really good chance of getting this grant. But we kinda need to move a little bit faster because if it is a new park that hasn't already done the background and research and outreach, we're gonna have to do that for the next location, so.

So you are pursuing this grant that was mentioned. We as a city are. As a city are already in the process of pursuing this grant for the potential improvements to parks that we already have that we don't currently have funds and a general fund to improve. But we also have Townsend Affairs and we have an unfilled grant writer position. There may be other opportunities out there similar to this one to actually seek out funding to create a green space here downtown in the future.

Correct.

Thank you, Mr. Wright.

Yeah, I'd just like to ask, since you're up here, I'm happy to hear that you're going to do a presentation about the potential grant funding that might be available, whether it's a new or old park. When you do that, could you provide the information about the difference between a city park, an existing park, versus a property that hasn't been modernized in any way? So we can gather the differences between what's possible, what isn't possible, how much money are we talking about through grant funding. for existing parks versus a park that nothing's been done at this time other than the planning side of it.

Yes, and of course, the maintenance cost for a new park as well. I'll come up with some estimates.

Yeah, because we need to know the ongoing, you know, add in, because for me, I was not here back when this was discussed and talked about. I've heard the term that, you know, when I got elected, I somehow signed up to carry this agreement out, which I'm not aware of, and I wasn't on board when it happened, so... When I hear stuff like that, it's like I didn't sign up for anything in particular. I'm here to learn. So when we look at what's available to the city, what grant funding's available, whatever's in the best interest of the city and to our community is what I'm down for, not particular pet projects for anybody. If that is the best project for Antioch, for our downtown, then I'm down for that, but I want to know more information and learn about it, because I wasn't here, I was a principal back then, I wasn't aware of what was going on down here. And so for me, that's what I'd like to know, is what the pros and cons are for grant funding, how much is available, and how can it be utilized, when we talked about pulling this particular item off of CIP, it was because there was no funding for it. If there's funding for it, then I'd be open to reviewing that again, but right now, my understanding when I look through the CIP, and we've talked before, there are a number of items that are unfunded, so okay, so it's a wish, but if we don't have funding to do it, why is it even in there? For example, I saw the synthetic turf That's an unfunded item, about two million, I believe. So I know it's something we want to do, but it's not something we can do right now, I don't believe. So I get a little confused when I look at the CIP and I see funded and unfunded. I'm not really sure why we have both in there. I mean, maybe there should be an attachment that says items for future review or something. For me, coming into it new as a new council member, when I see the items side by side, some say unfunded and some are funded, that's where I have to kind of scratch my head and wonder why. So maybe we can do a better job of clarifying.

Yeah, I think the challenge that the community is having is I don't ever remember a discussion about selling this property to a developer. I also don't remember ever having a conversation about developing housing. I do remember that there was a conversation around the CIP that if it's an unfunded project, we should remove it from the CIP until we can figure out what is the best use, what is the potential of mixed use, or is it green space? And I also have been in downtown Pittsburgh, before they did everything they did down there was a crazy place to be, but now it's an amazing place to be. And I've been to property and conquered as well. Amazing place to be. And so it is a potential that the investment there will support both economic development and the desire for green space that the residents want to see. I guess the question that the community has at this point is that I don't think there's a commitment to sell this property to a developer at this point. I haven't heard that conversation. But are we willing to put the project back on CIP for potential or future opportunities similar to what you mentioned? And I did warn people that the previous commitment that the previous council made may not still be the commitment or desire of a new council. And I do agree that you shouldn't have to be held to to those previous commitments. But I do think it says something that so many people have a lot of people have said they don't want to see a green space that they want to see development so that economic development can happen and a lot of people have said green space is there a meeting in the middle and i think we are the body that's responsible for figuring that out so that the community will not kind of be on standby and staff will know what the expectations are for fundraising moving forward because we obviously can't carry it through the general fund And even if we find outside dollars to create a green space or do mixed use development, if this is something that the city desires, we also may not have the money to maintain another large park in the city. And so these are all the things we need to consider. I think this needs to be a discussion topic moving forward with Mr. Wright as well as Mr. Bunty and all of us with the community about how do we move forward.

Yeah, I don't have strong feelings either way. I just want to do what's best for the city. And if this grant funding that you're talking about, when you provide it, we'll have more information, be more transparent on what's available. And if it's not coming from general fund, if it's being funded through grant outside of our general fund, I'm down for that and seeing how we can best utilize those funds to serve our community, whether it's at the city park, another location, or in the yard space that's referred to. I don't have strong feelings either way. I'm open to doing whatever's best. I, too, have been to Pittsburgh. I grew up in Antioch, so I've been going to the Mecca for years. It's one of my favorite restaurants. La Veranda is another one of my favorites, and right across the street is the park, and they have car shows. I have friends that own cars, but there's also car shows in Antioch that I go to, too. So I just think that anything we can do to draw people down is great. It's just a matter of finding the right project at the right time, and I appreciate you doing the research to get the information and to share with us at our next meeting, it sounds like, because I think there's a lot to learn and some good discussion to come. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, thank you, Mr. Wright. We're really short on time, so I'm going to ask it. Anybody else have questions? Council Member Wilson? Yes.

I have one question for Mr. Bunting. Thank you again for your report. My question is, and I'm asking this for Mayor Pro Tem, are roadways, how are we, the roadway projects, how are they prioritized? Because it seems like some streets are getting overlooked, some streets are getting that attention. And I know you've posted, you posted, in your report you indicated some areas, but what is the process you say this roadway is more important than this one?

Thank you for the question. So right now, we're in the middle of, basically, it's the beginning of our pavement management system. It's funded by a PTAP grant. What this program does is they do an analysis of our roadways. They drive them. They look at them. They assess them. From that, they work with staff. We come up with a rehabilitation plan to it, but they also come up with a pavement index.

So wait a minute. So the funder of these grants, They survey our streets and say these are the ones we want to find.

So the grant doesn't pay cash to the city, it provides us with a consultant. So the grant pays for a consultant, in this case the name's Adhira, it's a traffic consultant. They're paid for out of this grant to perform a service for the city of Antioch. So this company then does the pavement analysis, views everything. We use a program called Street Saver that this stuff goes into. We generate PCI, Pavement Condition Index, for these roads. From that, then we'll start mulling through what those numbers are. Typically, you'll find pavements similar in areas just because of when it was constructed. try to look at those, we see the areas that have been, that have the lower PCIs, try to address them. Sometimes as pavement indexes get super small, oftentimes they demand a lot of work to them. Reconstruction can be expensive on really bad roads. But basically by the pavement index, looking at that, looking at the general areas, and then also with what we see out in the field, You could also have areas that have say trench through, say we installed water lines and sewer lines, so that's something that could also lead to us wanting to do some pavement rehabilitation out there. But you take a combination of the PCI and the results that we get from this PMS process, as well as what we know, and then we start packaging things up. And then we package the projects. Currently, we've developed, at least currently, I've got two years worth of plans or so. It was attached to the, when we awarded the Cape Seal project, there was a list of about four or five different areas That's what we plan to get to next within our system, within our payment management system. As we go through the PTAP process with this consultant, it may change a little bit, but generally it's a combination of what we see on the field, what we hear from residents, as well as what we have for this PCI. Try to make the best of it so we can get out there and kind of take advantage of the areas that aren't, that are the worst, but you end up, like I say, it ends up being more of an area than just a street, because like I say, this subdivision's all built at the same time, the roadway seems to be failing similarly. So it's a process, there's a number of different things that go into it, but the pavement management system and the PCIs that we get is important for us to go after the lower ones, because it is important for our roadways to be in good shape and that PCI to be higher.

Thank you. I have one question. I get asked by a number of residents in District Two about street calming and where they're at in the process or in the queue when they've called, they've done the application or started the process. Is there any place to direct residents to to kind of see, like tonight's been discussed, locations that are gonna be receiving the street calming? and then maybe what streets are in the queue for six months, a year, two years, whatever that might be, because I get calls, it seems, on a regular basis about are we up yet, and I don't know the answer other than to call and ask city staff, so is there a place somewhere where this is communicated out to the public when we have street calming happening, as you described earlier, and where it's not happening, and when will that be?

So the list of, it's a working list. It's kind of a working list. There's nothing that's published that says actually where everybody is on the list. They do come in first come, first serve basis is how they're looked at. And then we just go through the process. The easiest way is to contact us through our traffic engineering department.

I'm just saying that to me, but that's the problem. is then you have to contact someone, you gotta get through, who do I speak to? I'm just asking if there might be some better way to post information in public works, so if someone wanted to go and research where they're at, because I know people that live on Longview, I know people that live on Hacienda and Mira Vista and other streets that have made those initial contacts, have been told that they're gonna be moving forward with the study, and then they hear nothing else. and then they call us to find out information about where things at and I don't know what to tell them other than direct them to your office or to the city or acting city attorney or city manager, I should say. And so to me, it just seemed like it'd be a lot easier for everybody if we had a point of, of information for them to go to. So maybe it's something to entertain that in public works, when you have projects going on like you laid out today, you can say to the public, these are some great things that are happening. These are things that have been completed. These are things we're working on. And down the road or in the next budget year, these are some of the streets that we're looking to work on. I mean, to me, it doesn't seem like that big of an ask, but it's an ask.

So the answer to your question is yes. Let me talk to our folks and see what it is that we can get printed on there. Within our website, we do have traffic engineering on there. You have the traffic calming policy and the traffic forms. Let me see if there's a way that I can get results on there. The other thing that we're trying to do and we'll continue to try to do is make sure we're making contact with the people that do submit. Hey, we got your form. We're working on it. We moved to the next step. maybe we're not quite there yet, but that's the intent is to give the feedback because that's what we've heard the most also is same thing. I've submitted and I don't know what happened to it. Trying to do better, but I think what I'll try to do is find something that I can get, you know, basically make a simplified table, get it on the website so that you can see maybe the street and the areas we're talking about where you are within the process.

Yeah, just maybe a way for people to track, you know? Yeah. You know, you put like, you order something and it's coming in the mail and you go to track to see, if it's being delivered, when to expect it. Kind of in a similar process. How do you maybe find out if something you submitted is in the queue or not? Maybe we missed something. But I just think it would be really improve communications and understanding with our residents because many times they call us and we don't have the answer and it takes time for us to get an answer. So anything we can do to streamline that.

I understand. And you know what? That sounds like an excellent idea. Let me look in on how we can incorporate that. Thank you.

And to Council Member Roach's point, just all the different types of projects, right? We've heard about parks, we've heard about different projects. I know it might be a lot, but just getting those out there. I know Mayor Pro Tem Freitas is interested in streets, so different projects, whatever the lineup is for those. Speaking of which, what's the status of the James Donlan traffic calming?

James only traffic calming. I'll be taking to the parking rec commission for the, for the BPAC, uh, probably in July. Um, and then that'll go through the BPAC and then we'll get that thing out to bed and get construction going on there. Hopefully, you know, within the next few months.

Okay. And so, so we're going to have Sycamore James Dolan and it wasn't 10th street.

The third street's a little bit more complicated from what I'm looking at, but that will also be within the mix. But I, we need to take another look at that before I get in front of the, uh, parking recognition.

Okay, so you have them lined up. So Sycamore first, James Donlan, then 10th Street.

That's currently the plan.

And I guess the other question, just generally speaking, so there's general fund contributions to several projects here in the upcoming year. The roof projects were just added on here, and I think they're not included in the funding. Is that correct for next year?

Currently, the roof projects are unfunded. so when so are you going to come back with a report on like what's the priority of when when which roof should go first when that should happen what can be repaired what can be deferred all of that right the the numbers that we have are good quotes on what we would think to do the work um as we move further yeah i would need to come back and get funding for those particular projects um nail it down a little bit uh some of the work may be able to be deferred do a little maintenance right now and not necessarily do a full roof so that's something that we'll be putting together

Okay, and then the 800 building on Second Street, what's the status of that?

We're currently, we reopened bids, we're currently looking at the bids, should be bringing some to council, maybe at the next council meeting.

Okay, because we have ARPA money that's running out at the end of the year on that, so that's getting close.

Understood.

Okay, and I guess the other one is just street lights. So we've done the first phase, or we're working on the first phase of the street lights. Is there a second phase in this CIP?

Yeah, it's a continuation. It's all in there. There's probably two plus million dollars in there for street lighting. We have about $400,000 in phase one. So there's about $2 million worth of unfunded portion of street lighting that we'll need to come back and get funding for in the future. It'd be really nice to see the first part roll out, make that look nice, make sure everybody's on board, and then we'll start moving forward.

So every project that you show as funded in the CIP for the general fund is included in the budget? Is that a true statement?

Every project that's in the CIP is within, all the funding within the CIP is also within the general fund.

Except for the roof projects, correct?

Except for anything that's not funded, yeah. Unfunded is not in the general fund.

Okay, okay. Last question, the marina. So it looks like there's quite a bit of work that's gonna be required down at the marina coming up in the next year or two between dredging, between storm drain projects, things like that. So do we have like a overall plan for that area down there?

Currently, like you said, we have some improvements that need to get taken place out there, some storm drain work that needs to get done, some other work around there. As for an overall plan to it, no. I mean, other than trying to maintain what's there, but there isn't a, say an overall plan for the marina, it's actually, it's in good shape, I mean, in terms of we're able to operate it, but there's a lot of, it's an aging facility, like most of our facilities are, that maintenance, city staff does a really good job of keeping up with the maintenance out there, because it is an aging facility on the water. But it's something that we'll continue to work on. But long-term plan, there's been lots of things discussed about the marina. For us right now, it's basically try to maintain what we have, make sure the drainage is okay, replace any sort of things that we can. One thing about that area, we spoke regarding... I believe last week we talked about the pay station, regarding whether or not that was necessary. I do not believe it's necessary, I believe it's something that the city has decided to put out there, but it's not part of the grant.

Okay, perfect. And I guess my last ask would just be, we have a lot of deferred maintenance in the city, whether it's the water park, or it's the marina, or it's our buildings, there's a lot of different places. Is there a way we can get that in one place that would show all of our deferred maintenance projects that are coming up so keep those on our radar as we're working on the budget. Because they're sprinkled throughout the CIP.

I guess, is there any way to limit the scope on that? What are we looking for?

Well, I just know, for example, the four roofs popped up just this year, right? So I mean, that's the first I think we've heard of that. And so it's $3 million worth of work. And then we have the sports fields, another two million. And we have the water park, you know, a million here, a million there. And so it's just all starting to add up. And so it would just be good to see, you know, in one spot kind of these are our deferred maintenance projects that are going to be hitting the general fund. Just so we aren't surprised when... when they come up.

Understood. Say over the next couple years, five years?

I'd say over the next couple years would be great. I mean, because we're already thinking about next year's budget and other things that will come up during this year's budget. So just something that we can make sure.

And that falls in line with unfunded, right? So pulling maybe unfunded, pulling items that are, as you stated, being put on hold.

Right, deferred.

Maybe have those broken out differently so they're not mixed in between pages where we have to kind of scramble to find it.

Maybe it's unfunded with deferred maintenance, things we have to do coming up and then things that we'd like to do but don't have the money for.

Right, with the intent, a lot of the unfunded stuff hopefully is projects that are outlying in terms of maintenance. Try to get the funding in there so that that's not getting kicked down the road. But I think I understand what you're saying. There is a difference between the unfunding stuff and then we have some of the deferred maintenance. Yeah, we can break that down a little bit.

okay perfect thank you any other questions or comments from mr bunting all right thank you very much uh this is going to conclude our budget study session city council has been in session since four o'clock so we are going to take a nine minute break and reconvene at 7 30. special meeting is adjourned at 7 21 pm

Thank you Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

So,

All right, thank you for bearing with us. We're starting a little bit late. We had closed session since four and we had a steady session until about 7.20. So we are now beginning our regular city council meeting for Tuesday, May the 26th, 2026. Mr. Clerk, can you please read the roll? Thank you.

Council Member Rocha? Here. Council Member Torres-Walker?

Present.

Council Member Wilson?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Freitas? Present. Mayor Bernal? Here. Thank you. We have a quorum at 7.31 p.m. All right.

If you would please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. All right, if we could have Madam City Attorney please report out on our closed session.

There were three closed session items on for today's agenda. The first one was public employee performance evaluation pursuant to government code sections 54957B1 and 54954.5E, the position to be reviewed with city attorney, and there's nothing to report out. The second item was public employee performance evaluation pursuant to government code sections 54957B1 and 54954.5E, position to be reviewed city manager, and there's nothing to report out. And the last item was a conference with legal counsel for significant exposure to litigation pursuant to government code sections 54956.9E2, number of potential cases nine. The city is in receipt of information concerning facts and circumstances that might result in litigation against the city, which are known to a potential plaintiff or plaintiffs, pertaining to possible equal employment opportunity, labor code section 1102.5, and for employment and housing act violations. And there's nothing to report out on that item as well.

All right, thank you very much. It is now time for public comment. These are for items that are not on tonight's City Council's agenda.

Thank you. Can we please have Michelle, followed by Devin Williams.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, staff, and community. We wanted to thank you for hearing the community's concerns regarding public safety and staffing at Antioch Animal Services, and for making the decision not to freeze the Animal Services Manager position. We appreciate your support and look forward to seeing this position, along with the other current vacancies, filled promptly. We also appreciate the council recognizing the community's concerns surrounding the potential transfer of Antioch Animal Services to Contra Costa County. And the impact such a change could have on local services and residents. As reflected in the proposed ten year term sheet sent to county animal services on April 27, 2026, these concerns were not unfounded. directly relate to the intent of Measure A and the preservation of local animal services. We would respectfully welcome a clear public statement so that facts, concerns, rumors, and misinformation can be properly addressed with transparency. We remain committed to working, all of us working collaboratively with the city and Antioch Animal Services to help identify solutions for sustainable funding, strengthened services, and continued local care for both the animals and the residents of our community as intended since 1979. Thank you so much. Have a good evening.

Devin Williams, followed by Miguel Mendoza.

Three minutes is not enough time for what I need to say tonight. Anna, do not let the mayor bully you. Don't. Mayor Bernal, You have taken every measure and initiative to make sure that our previous city manager does not have power. And you know what I'm saying? I'm saying it plainly. You have made sure that she does not have any control over the city. And I respect you as the mayor, but at the same time, I cannot go on and pretend like I agree with you on every stance. And that's my democratic right. It's my First Amendment right. And I'll speak plainly. You have made sure that this city's gonna run to the ground by everything that you've done. That's how I see it. To the council members that you sit with, Monica, Tamisha, Louie, Donald, You guys cannot let this happen. The city was on improvement. It was going, we're about to be in a deficit more than we have been ever. Because you ran the city as a city manager for seven years, you were the public works director, and then the people gave you power to be the mayor. We need to have consistency on the up, and you're not doing that. I've lost faith in you, sir. What's going on? I'm sorry, sir. It's not looking good. And you can shake hands and smile in people's faces, but you have not proven to be the person that you set out to be. And you defeated the mayor in the last election that was actually on the improvement. I'm sorry to say that. I'm open to having a conversation offline about this, but I really am disappointed. To get rid of Bessie Scott, to get rid of the five consultants that the DOJ told us we needed to have to ensure that we were in compliance? Come on man, like what are we doing here? We're not gonna be in the bankruptcy because of the decisions made up here. Don, Louie, please. Get something, come on. You guys know what's right. I, I, I, there's not enough words.

Miguel followed by Jonisha.

How's it going? I'm back like I promised. First I want to say thank you Ana Cortes for what you've been working on behind the scenes with my issue. Tamisha, I also want to say thank you as well because you have been the only one to voice in regards to my issue. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, face to face. Ron, no thank you because you have literally not responded to a single email, sorry, once you did a year ago, like I said. The issue here lies, one, let me introduce myself again, Miguel Mendoza. I'm not only a content creator, I've also been a compliance officer for several years for a financial institution. So I know policy, it was in the OFAC sanctions. I've also been a, what's it called, in tech, a leader in different departments. I know how to strategize, I know how to mobilize, I know how to organize. And with that I mean is like, you guys serve the community. And I'm glad that there's so many young people here today. Because we don't work for you, you work for us. So when you're not doing your job, we notice. So whenever someone here, and I'm gonna make it a point, if someone here has an issue with the city, I would love to help on that campaign, that journey. Because you know what I had to do? I had to reach out to the Assemblywoman in order for my issue to be heard. That's embarrassing. You're the mayor. Why aren't you stepping in? Why do I have to reach out to the assemblywoman? Why? To get an issue. It's about trash bins for code enforcement. They charge my tenants $3,000 for having trash bins out. $3,000, mind you, here in Antioch. Do you think that's okay? You sit here, you listen to everybody, but is there ever any action? Ana Cortes has done more in a week as interim city manager than you have done in a year. You've responded once to my emails. You're CC'd to now. I sent one last week, you still didn't respond. I'm sure maybe you read them. If there's ever a recall for you, trust me that I will help the campaign, I will help strategize, I will help organize because that's what I do. I help the tech company grow 10x from 1,500 employees to 10,000 in a year. And I can do that with you and your recall. Thank you.

Jonisha, followed by Brandy.

Good evening, council and residents. My name is Johnisha Smith. I am a community development lead with Rebuilding Together, and I'm here to speak on behalf of our Big Skills program, which I'm excited to talk about here. I would love the opportunity to do a presentation at a later date, but I'll just kind of introduce the program and share some of the benefits for the community. So as the emerging developer and personnel with the Big Skills program, what this offers is housing solutions specifically for the city of Antioch, as well as workforce development training. And the activities that we have available through the organization are allowable expenses through the CDBG grant because of the economic development. as well as job training and workforce development. We also have HUD accredited housing development opportunities. Essentially, my role is working with homeowners in the city of Antioch, and I'm actually working with a couple right now, where we are able to have these ADUs, which are tiny homes, And we have a partnership right now with the Antioch High School where high school students are able to come in and get training on how to build houses from the ground up. And once these houses are completed at the end of the school year, we actually donate them for free to low income homeowners in the city of Antioch. And that's because our program is geared towards housing preservation to make sure that people are not displaced from their homes and housing affordability is maintained here in the city of Antioch. We're able to do it with these two residents because we received priority from the MTC grant and that allowed us to provide funding for those homeowners to actually build the units which are state approved. They will be on permanent foundations that add value to homeowners and they can rent them out. They can use the space for extra family members, aging parents, aging children. But there are plenty of benefits that we are happy to share and collaborate with the city of Antioch on. We also have opportunities for development through cottage communities. We work with faith-based organizations to provide housing and development for underserved populations. We're currently doing that in other locations in the Bay Area and excited to explore those opportunities with the city of Antioch. If you have any questions, you can see me after. Thank you.

Brandy followed by Crystal and then Leslie. Brandy Mazarigos. Crystal.

All right.

Hello City Council, so I'm going to make this as fast as possible. In Ephesians 6.12 it says, We fight not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, rulers of darkness. Principalities are high-ranking spiritual beings that over earthly realms, nations, and societal structures. Although we are not in church, I just wanted to give you a little perspective on what I see on an everyday basis, not just on Sycamore, but in this City Council. Hello. All I hear from everyone is we need to move forward. But yet, at the heart of racial issues, we had a previous mayor, Freitas, from 2000 to 2007, who got together a team called CAT. These officers then terrorized Antioch Section 8 units on Sycamore. Freitas strongly denied these allegations. At a 2007 council meeting, he called these claims of discrimination a lie and demanded an apology from legal aid groups. The council then defended the police department on what they did. In 2017, Ron Burnell was the city manager until 2021 who worked closely with the police department. Then he resigned at the heart of the text messaging scandal from the so-called non-racist APD at the time. What Freitas and the previous city council started formed the diabolical racist APD we had at that point. Although the fact that most owners were too scared to rent to Section 8 housing on the good side of the track, so everyone was stuck in District 1. Mind you, the citizens that sued the city won in 2010 on multiple issues. Side note, thank you to Bessie Scott and to Chief V Hill for restructuring our police department and doing what we needed to get done for this city regardless of pushbacks. I also want to then say that just a couple months ago, Ron Burnell then implemented, Mr. Solis, I'm going to keep saying it until we fix it, OK? I don't have to care if I have to be in your ear 24-7. Solis does not know his job in the commission, and he needs to be taken out. I have multiple people who have watched this. There's absolutely no reason why he deserves to be on that commission board. We need people who are willing to make a change and care about the community themselves. I have seen multiple special meetings on getting rid of Bessie Scott to be replaced by Ms. Anna Cortez. No offense, Ms. Anna. However, no meetings about how we're going to use the substation, Mayor. The fact that we're supposed to be having non-profit organizations and I FORGOT HER NAME, BUT SHE CAN'T DO EVERYTHING HERSELF. SO WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO GET PROGRAMS IN THERE TO HELP THE COMMUNITY.

LESLIE MAY, FOLLOWED BY ERICA ROLSTON.

GOOD EVENING, COUNCIL. Crystal stole a little of my thunder because I did some research myself and I found the same. This is the actual lawsuit that was filed. And I can't help but believe it. I saw you shaking your head, Mayor Tim Freitas, but you're all in here, referring to blacks. There was African American blacks. You could smile, shake your head. You attacked us. You put this community action team together in the police department that attacked us. No more rentals. No more Section 8. By the way, I don't have Section 8. Save Antioch now. We, the residents, are watching you. You accused them of all the crime here in Antioch. You and a couple of more people, Jim Davis and another one that comes here said that they were coming out of Richmond and you wanted us to get back to Richmond. I'm saying us because I'm black. You have a pattern of racism. You have a pattern. And this cannot be Erased. Bessie Scott was doing a darn good job. She came in. I have all the research I need. I've been researching and printing for the last week of remarks you made before you even got into the office, before you were even sworn in. You threatened to go after me. You threatened to go after Bessie. You threatened to go after Thomas, who was the city attorney at the time. So you managed to do that. I think you should pat yourself on the back. I resigned from the APOC. And the only reason why I resigned, because you were sending your people, and it's the white people, to my house doing things, pointing their fingers at me like guns, breaking into my cars. And I know you were behind this. There was all kind of things that were happening at my house. I wasn't afraid, because I have a 9 millimeter and another gun that tells you I'm not afraid of anybody. Okay, but I didn't want my daughter to be upset or my granddaughter. And that's the reason why I resigned, because of a lie that you put out there into the newspapers, and I already got the newspaper people's names to, where you called them and told them to do an article and say that I called the people a hard N word, which I didn't. I was sitting here reading a quote, I had a paper that evening, all of you saw it, reading a quote from Carter G. Woodson, that's a black historian. And I said it. It wasn't with the hard R. I have a letter for Bessie now stating that she knew I didn't call her that. But you put it out to the media that I called that name. And I would never do it. But I'm going to tell you something. Also, you have your friends attacking me. This new, who is this guy, your big shot. You know, you're a person that you have coming in. to going to be the big economic developer hero. And he made a remark on an article saying that, why, I didn't like him because he's white and Chinese. I have my background. I have all my genealogy at home. I invite him to come to my house. I'll show him. I'm Nigerian from the Igbo tribe. I have Asian in me. I have Irish in me. Okay, so I can't be hating on people. Stop attacking me and stop attacking black people in this city before you get something you're not ready for.

Good evening, city council. Again, I'm coming, doing the same complaints that I come every time I come about subject safety. Now, I noticed that in the city budget, you guys are getting ready to cut public safety again. Again, I'm living on West 5th and J Street. I started the other day, yesterday, we saw a homeless encampment again that's coming up into our neighborhood. I just called the police and told the police politely about it. They said, okay, we'll send somebody. I explained to them about how the guy was moving a car, and he said, oh, no, I'm only going to be there for about four or five hours. I'll be gone. Well, guess what? They're there now. I sat there today and watched people riding their scooters, riding up to the mobile home. He opens the door, gives them something, they ride away. Two minutes later, another bicycle guy rides up in a bicycle. He opens the door, gives them something. Then I see another car. I take a click it, fix it. I say, you know what? You guys need to send this. This is getting to the point it's ridiculous. But yet this is one of the things in your city budget that you're about to cut public safety. Here it is getting ready to be summertime again. The kids are graduating, going to college. But we got kids here who have nothing to do for the summer again. I brought many suggestions to you guys about bringing AmeriCorps, about bringing Job Corps, about bringing things for the kids to do to keep them busy. But again, that's one of the things that's being cut out again. And this is getting to the point is ridiculous. Everything that we have for the city to try to improve it, every time we turn around and we get to a point where we think we're getting better, we take two steps forward and 10 steps back. And as a community, we're getting tired of this because we're getting gaslighted. Because that's what I'm feeling every time I read something in a newspaper and every time I come to the city council meetings and come to these budget meetings and you want our opinions on stuff. We're being gaslighted. And we're getting tired of that. And the street that we need to be on. And we're in the community. We're in our street on J Street. Again, we've complained about the lighting. Guess what? We still have those same mood lights. OK, we complained about the water. Guess what? When it rains, it floods the whole sidewalk and then some, where you have to move your car before your car won't be flooded out. We complained about the encampments. Guess what? They're starting to pop up again. So it gets to the point where it gets tired of every time we come to city council as a community and we complain about these things. And when you go into budget, you say, well, we're going to cut this. We're going to cut the public safety. We're going to cut that. Now you get ready to cut on the Angelo Quinto crisis team. We begged for this to help us because we were having our black and brown community being attacked and killed by police officers who don't know how to handle a person in a mental health crisis who can't determine if they're having a mental health crisis or they're having an endangerment to the police. So they just pull out the gun instead of pulling out a taser or trying to talk to them about it. Instead, what you do is now you decided on your budget that you're going to cut that. You've already cut some of their hours down to damn near nothing. And then when you decide at the end of the year you're going to not renew their contract, what does that do to the city? How do you think the community feels? We're supposed to be entrusting the police and entrusting you guys to have our best interests, but all you're doing is steady gaslighting us. And we're getting tired of this as a community. We're getting tired of coming here. We're getting tired of complaining and not hearing this and not listening to us and not doing anything to approve it. And then you want to sit behind the back and behind in these backdoor, make these backdoor policies for these developers to come in and build houses, but have one or two available for low income. And then the low income is $100,000. Who the hell makes $100,000? Okay, most of the people here got two, maybe three jobs. I know one time I had three jobs just to make it, to take care of my daughter who is now in one week will be 30 years old and going to a veteran school, veterinary school, okay, and I was a single mother. But here's the thing. You guys got to stop gaslighting us because after a while the city gets tired of it and people say, you know what, we're going to handle things the way we can handle it. And that's what you don't want to do. But we as a community, we're getting tired of being gaslighted and you guys need to be looking into our best interests, but we see we're not. So maybe we need to get rid of this whole team and get us a brand new people up here, a brand new city council.

Juan and Daniela, followed by... Looks like Johnny or Tommy Hernandez.

Sorry. Good evening council members and community. My name is Juan Rubio and I am a sophomore at Antioch High School.

Hello, good evening. My name is Daniela. I am a senior at Antioch High School.

and we will be introducing Earth Team in a project we have been working on throughout the year. Earth Team is a sustainable youth internship that focuses on teaching students about environmental issues and pushing for community advocacy, such as what we're doing tonight.

Our project is titled Where the Rubber Meets the Road, and it's a project focused on TRWP, which stands for tire and road wear particles. They are tiny particles created from tires and roads wearing down over time. These particles are... are becoming toxic and affect our air quality and the environment and as well as human health, especially in the disadvantaged communities exposed to heavy traffic pollution. This research is funded by the California Air Resources Board, also known as CARB, which works to reduce air pollution and improve environmental health access in California.

Thank you.

Tommy Hernandez.

Good evening, city council. My name is Johnny Hernandez. I'm a senior at Antioch High School. I'm going to be telling you guys about our project objective for where the rubber meets the road. So essentially, our goal was to collaborate alongside other Bay Area school districts to collect and study road dust near major freeways and public roads to test for harmful pollutants from tires and brakes, including chemicals that are linked to co-host salmon deaths and human health hazards. Testing this road dust helps us also find out how much TRWP that is being generated in that certain area and overall presents us with more data about TRWP. And thank you.

Denise and Yarelli. followed by Kylie and Adrian.

Hi, I'm really, I'm a sophomore at Antioch high school. Hi, I'm Denise and I'm a sophomore at Antioch high school too. And we're going to be talking about the equipment we use to collect this data.

So we had required personal protective equipment, which is also known as PPE, which included masks, gloves, glasses, hard hats, and high visibility vest. We had roles like scribe collector and spotter, which we practice using in meeting by learning how to wear our PPE and spot our team members.

Our sampling materials were containers, plastic spoons, brushes, permanent markers, pens, clipboards, and a hard copy data sheet. And the container, plastic spoons, and brushes were used to collect the road dust and were used by the collectors. And then the markers, pens, clipboards, and copied data sheet was used to collect our information and used by the scribes. And then our steps for collecting the dust were spotters set up the cones and prepared a watch for the incoming traffic. And then we put on our PPE and carefully scoop or brush up dust from the side of the curb. And once it was filled, we sealed it and labeled it.

We took data documenting key details about the site location, such as levels of traffic, which was low, moderate, high, and if it was a commercial, industrial, or residential zone, if there were storm drains, and also the coordinates of the site. And our last step is we walked and prepared for the last site, which we had seven sites around our school. Thank you.

Kylie and Adrian.

Hi, I'm Kylie Johnson, senior at Antioch High School.

Hello, council, my name is Adrian Diaz-Posos. I'm a senior in high school as well.

And we're going to tell you about the results that we got from our project. The raw data that we got showed that in the front of Antioch High School and by the highway has the highest levels of lead and zinc compared to the lesser-used roads around Antioch.

So to add on what Kylie just said, so patterns we have also noticed back from the lab result is that larger cities tend to have more of a higher levels of chemicals and heavy metals such as like mercury, lead, and also as zinc.

Thank you.

Shanessa, Sabree, and Bing.

Hello, my name is Bing, and I'm a junior at Antioch High School.

My name is Sabrina Sawyer, and I'm also a junior at Antioch High School.

My name is Jess McGinnis, and I am a current junior at Antioch High School. And discussing these results that we found, our goal was to understand the prevalence of minerals and or heavy metals that are associated with TRWPs, tire road wear particles, in communities throughout the Bay Area. Our highest concentrations of zinc that were found were at Site HS7, which is located near Antioch High School, and California Highway 4. Our locations of concern include site HS4 and HA6 because these high concentrations of zinc are located around not only school communities but also apartments in the region.

Like what Janessa said, the results of our research indicate that there may be higher risk for those living or attending school in areas close proximity to roadways since there are high levels of heavy metals at these sites. Because these heavy metals are likely to cause health problems such as respiratory and cardiovascular disorders, we recommend that there be legislation in place limiting automobile activity around schools to prevent public health risks. Some disclaimers about our projects. Limited funding made it difficult to collect a large number of samples, which would have made our data much more statistically significant.

We analyzed the results of heavy metals in the area, but we were not able to test for 6PBD or 6PBDQ due to how expensive the testing process is.

Our team has put in a lot of research into this project, and with our results, we are better able to educate others about the future effects of TRWPs and how to reduce it. Thank you all, and I hope you have enjoyed our presentation.

Thank you. Gavin Payton.

Good evening, council. Can we first give a round of applause again for the youth that came and spoke up? Thank you. I also wanna just clarify also a few things. I also wanna stand aside of all of my few peers that came and spoke up. It absolutely was true that Mr. Mayor, you was the past city manager FOR THE CITY COUNCIL. AND THE TEXT MESSAGE SCANDAL HAPPENED UNDER YOUR WATCH AS THE CITY MANAGER. I ALSO WANT TO STAND UP FOR MS. KATHERINE WADE. HER SON WAS ALSO IN THOSE SAME TEXT MESSAGES WHERE THEY BRUTALLY BEAT HIM, MIND YOU, ASSAULTED HIM WITH BARELY AN INCH OF HIS LIFE. I'm not only just standing up for that. I'm also standing up for the fact that they was calling our African American women water buffaloes. Water buffaloes. They called the previous mayor a gorilla, which he did put things in place, which now seems funny because this administration is taking away the same things he put in place. Where did I see the same thing before? Oh yeah, Trump did that with Obamacare. You wanna talk about justice, let's talk about how they're actually trying to get rid of black people's voting rights. The same rights that we fought and died for. Which, the same rights that put every single one of you in your positions. Because without the black vote, it wouldn't have happened. Because African Americans rock the vote. Not only we rock the vote, but we are the backbone of this country. We are the foundation of this country. The black women gave birth to this country. I don't think y'all here heard me. The African American woman gave birth to this country. the people are not gonna stand by silently, the youth are not gonna stand by silently because the same youth that applied to be on the police oversight commission were denied. How I know is because I was the one that encouraged them to apply because they wanted to see change. Because have yet any of you asked the youth that was targeted in those same text messages, ask them what was it that they need to see change in their community? Have you been to any of their schools, any of their homes, anywhere youth are at where they're the most prominently dumb target? Because the African-American young male is the ones that get attacked, abused the most. If not, look at Tamir Rice. Look at Emmett Till. If you're with me, please stand up. Thank you.

We have no further public comments. All right, thank you. Moving on to, do we have a public comment?

Why'd you start my 30 minutes? Okay, council. What's up with this trip to Washington, D.C.? Three members of the council go to Washington, D.C. I think that's a Brown Act violation. Unless you guys, all the time that you were in Washington, D.C., you did not discuss any of Antioch's issues. But Louie, in your post on Facebook, you said that you were talking about Antioch's issues together. Three of our council member. Well, we're broke. You guys decide, well, let's go to Washington, D.C., let's get the per diem, let's get the hotel, the cocktails, the weed, whatever. Do you know why it's a Brown Act violation? Because three of you guys are not allowed to be together to speak about the issues. It's okay if you guys go to a Fourth of July party and you're all standing together, but if one of you says, like, what about that new gymnasium? What about the homeless? Okay, I've documented all of your Brown Act violations, but the reason why nothing's being done, you guys are all donating to the district attorney. Come on, how many of you donated to the district attorney? Raise your hand. Raise your hand. OK, I know you guys hate me, but let's just do a quick recap, OK? Con Johnson, I warned you. You hired him as a city manager. He had two bankruptcies on his record. And they gave him $100 million. Here you go. You can drive the car for a while. Watched some of the meetings when he was the city manager. He never said one word for months at a time, okay? The worst hire ever. Two of you up there voted for him, okay? Chief Ford, he kept saying, oh, don't worry, I've got the city covered. What was he doing? What motel was he at? Barbanica. Another loser, okay? He thinks he's an FBI agent. Oh, I'm gonna set up this guy. He donated $5,000 and a coffee cup. Well, yeah, you can make a donation in a coffee cup. But, you know, Mike Barbanica, he thought he was like Detective Trezor. Bessie. I told you not to hire Bessie. She comes from Seattle. Google it. Look at all the deficits she left in Seattle, okay? Okay, I've got some emails that Bessie sent nine months ago. I wish I had more time. You guys can get them yourself, OK? I'll give you what it said. Nine months ago, Betsy writes an email saying, oh, Ron's saying I can't do the job. Oh, I was at the Starbucks, and Ron said I'm not worthy of this job. And this was nine months ago. She's already trying to protect her job. She's got a lawyer. And then she hires Tracy, Tracy Whiteboard, remember? We have a coach. Antioch has a coach. We have a whiteboard every time they put up a new streetlight. Congratulations, Antioch.

We have no further public comments.

All right, moving on to item number one, proclamations. Do I have a motion from council to approve the proclamations?

Move approval. Second.

I have a motion from Councilmember Wilson, second from Councilmember Torres-Walker. Please cast your votes. Motion passes 5-0. All right. We have two proclamations tonight. I'll read the first one. If the recipient can come on up and say a few words, then we'll read the second one. If the recipient can come up and say a few words, and then we'll come down. Council will come down and take pictures with both groups. The first proclamation is recognizing June 2026 as Pride Month in the city of Antioch. Whereas June is recognized across the United States and around the world as Pride Month honoring the contributions, history, and resilience of LGBTQ plus community. Whereas every individual is equal before and under the law and has a right to equal protection and benefit of the law without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, sex, age, or mental or physical disability. Whereas the city of Antioch recognizes that diversity, inclusion, dignity, and equal protection for all residents strengthens the social, cultural, and civic fabric of the community and reaffirms its commitment to fostering a welcoming environment where individuals of all backgrounds, identities, and abilities are treated with respect and offered equal opportunity to live, work, and participate fully in community life. Whereas the long and ongoing struggle to transgender, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and other sexual minorities for basic civil and human rights continues to provide inspiration to all. Whereas the city of Antioch is committed to celebrate the history and diversity of our city's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community and promotes a society in which all residents can live free from discrimination. And whereas Pride Month is an opportunity to celebrate this harmony in which we coexist. Now, therefore, I, Ron Burnell, Mayor of the City of Antioch, hereby proclaim the month of June 2026 and each following June as Pride Month in the City of Antioch and invite everyone to reflect on ways we can live and work together with a commitment to mutual respect and understanding. If I could please have Nicole LaPointe come and receive this, please. Hi, Nicole. She's the clinical director at Rainbow Community Center. Welcome.

Thank you for having us. I'm here on behalf of Rainbow Community Center and our executive director, Jorge Chamorro. We're located in Concord, near Todos Santos Plaza. Rainbow's mission is to build community, equity, and well-being among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, or agender, and two-spirit people and our allies. The mission of Rainbow is to envision a society that advocates for and celebrates gender and sexual diversity, racial justice, safety and liberation for all through healing centered engagement. Rainbow transcends its vision from inclusive to expansive as we will be able to represent by centering and reaching a wider scope of marginalized LGBTQIA2S plus and intersectional identities more effectively. Rainbow Community Center is the only LGBTQ center in Contra Costa County. We're here to build community, connection, and support. We just celebrated our 30 year anniversary. We are also putting on Pride in the Plaza, which is gonna be in Concord on June 6th. I hope you all can join us. As the clinical director, I want to talk about our clinical services. So we offer free or sliding scale therapy services to 12 and older. No one will ever get turned away for lack of funds. We also have youth emergency housing for our 18 to 25 year olds. Family support, social support groups, senior programming, senior coffee hours. senior luncheons, we have a youth programming where we have youth drop in space on Mondays from 4 to 6 PM. We offer youth summer camp. The first week is going to be rising third to sixth grade. The second week is rising sixth to ninth graders. Our website's down, but you can follow us on social media. And I hope to have you all connect to Rainbow. Thank you.

All right, thank you, Nicole. All right, our second proclamation is Gun Violence Awareness Month, June 2026. Whereas gun violence continues to impact communities across the nation and has devastating effects on individuals, families, neighborhoods, and public safety, causing loss of life, physical injury, emotional trauma, and long-lasting harm. whereas every resident deserves to feel safe in their homes, schools, workplaces, parks, and public spaces, and preventing gun violence requires a collective commitment from community members, educators, healthcare providers, faith leaders, law enforcement, advocates, and local government. Whereas the City of Antioch recognizes the importance of promoting strategies that reduce violence, support victims and survivors, strengthen community partnerships, and address the root causes of violence through education, prevention, intervention, and access to resources. Whereas communities across the country observe Gun Violence Awareness Month each June to honor the lives lost to gun violence, uplift survivors and impacted families, and raise awareness about the importance of working together to create safer communities. Whereas wearing orange during Gun Violence Awareness Month has become a national symbol of solidarity, remembrance, and hope for a future free from gun violence. Whereas the City of Antioch supports efforts that foster peace, healing, youth engagement, conflict resolution, mental wellness, and community-based violence prevention initiatives that help build a safer and more connected community for all. Whereas recognizing Gun Violence Awareness Month provides an opportunity to reaffirm our shared responsibility to prevent violence, support those affected by gun violence, and encourage meaningful community dialogue and action that promotes safety, dignity, and well-being for all. And whereas during Gun Violence Awareness Month, the City of Antioch joins communities throughout the nation in raising awareness about the impact of gun violence and renewing our commitment to creating a safer, healthier, and more resilient community. Now, therefore, I, Ron Burnell, Mayor of the City of Antioch, hereby proclaim the month of June 2026 and each following June to be Gun Violence Awareness Month in the City of Antioch. Could I please have Hisham Alibab come down? He is the Violence Prevention Program Manager for Contra Costa Health and the Public Health Division. Thank you, Hisham.

Thank you. Mayor Bernal, Mayor Pro Tem Freitas, council members, and members of the public, on behalf of Contra Costa Health and our violence prevention program, thank you for this proclamation. And thank you to the city of Antioch for joining communities across the nation in recognizing June as Gun Violence Awareness Month. By using this moment to publicly affirm what so many already know, that gun violence is a public health crisis and preventing it must be a shared commitment, the city of Antioch is leading from a place of clarity and conscience. We accept this proclamation tonight in honor of every Antioch resident whose life has been touched by gun violence, every family that carries grief, every neighborhood that is working to heal, and every young person growing up in proximity to harm they did not choose. We carry their stories into the work every day. Gun violence is a leading cause of injury and death among young people in the United States. Decades of public health research make it clear that violence is preventable. Through trusted messenger street outreach, trauma-informed behavioral healthcare, community healing, and youth leadership, violence can be interrupted before it occurs. and communities can be supported in healing afterward. That is the work that Contra Costa Health is committed to doing in Antioch, not for Antioch, but with Antioch. Through our CalVIP partnership, alongside the city's public safety and community resources team, we will continue to invest the staff, the strategy, and the resources required to make measurable progress To the families and the individuals who carry this work in their hearts every day, we see you, we stand with you, and we will continue this work alongside you. Thank you, Mayor Bernal, and thank you to the city council for this recognition. Thank you.

All right, thank you very much. We're gonna go on down and present these. Yeah, I'll have public comment after we present.

Okay. Thank you.

All right, do we have any public comment on this item?

It's that time of year. Got another flag. This time I didn't have it myself. Ronnie, my friend that lives here in Antioch, is donating the flag to Antioch to fly for Pride Month. I wanted to thank you also for inviting the Rainbow Room, who used to have services here in Antioch also. Maybe you guys want to talk to them about bringing them back. So that would be a good perk. And I just wanted to thank you so much for coming. And as promised, it's here.

Right, thank you.

Proclamations. No slide to the other people that came here, got the words, but I just feel like, Annie, I could slide it. You got to go all the way to Concord to find somebody. We have activists right here. Mary Lutz, Gavin Payton have been coming up here for years supporting. If anyone should have got their award, it should have been an award. It should have been them in terms of that. And in terms of gun violence, I understand the county working together, but there's a lot of people who have organizations right here in Antioch. that are fighting every day pounding the street against gun violence. And I just feel like once again it's a slight to Antioch residents because we know who those people are that are fighting and because they're not the people we want to recognize we just go all out of our way to find somebody else to recognize. I think that's a slight against the Antioch residents. Do better.

Mr. Becker?

I will say I think it makes sense in the process to probably have the public comments before the pictures because People just like to leave quickly here, I see. So I wanted to say, I wanted to read something from 2008. In unrelated incidents Wednesday, two Antioch teens were targeted for their iPods as they waited at bus stops. The incidents occurred days after a Washington Public Policy Institute released a report stating iPods alone have raised crime rates nationwide as robbers target the devices. Shortly before noon Wednesday in Antioch, an 18-year-old man was sitting at a bus stop in the 300 block of L Street when a man ran up and grabbed his iPod off his head. The victim chased the suspect, who then dropped the iPod on the ground. The victim picked up the portable listening device, but the suspect returned and punched him several times, trying to recapture the iPod. The victim managed to fend off the robber and keep his iPod. A little more than 10 hours later, a 17-year-old Antioch boy was sitting listening to his iPod at the bus stop in the 3100 block of Conchaloma when two men jumped out of a four-door Lexus. One of the men pressed a handgun against the victim and told him to empty his pockets. The pair left in the car with the boy's iPod. Although similar, the two incidents were unrelated. So back in 2008, I was that 17-year-old boy. And I'll tell you that in 2008, I'm sure we all remember, cell phones were not in every teenager's hands. And they definitely were not in mine. And so I was sitting at the bus stop, and I got on the bus, and I got off at Raley's from L Street on the 380, the long route through town. And I used the pay phone to call my mom, who then called the police, who then came out the next day for a report. And I remember at 17 years old saying to the police officer in front of my dad, and my dad was kind of a tough it up guy. And I said to the officer, is there anyone to talk to? Is there any way to get support? Because I felt like a victim. And I remember being told or asked, I guess, were you injured? And then I kind of thought to myself, well, do you have to be shot for it to be traumatic to have a gun put in your lap at 17 years old on your way home and have your possessions taken away from you? But here in 2026, When I look at this new department that's created here in this city, and the way that we are addressing gun violence in our community, I feel a positivity for 17 year olds in our community, thank you.

Hi. Thank you to the people that accepted these proclamations. I just want to personally, on behalf of the East County and WSB Youth Council, thank you for all your hard work and due diligence. However, I do think it's funny that there are actively advocates that are here. and people that have been making changes in the city of Antioch, not only in the city of Antioch, but across the county wide. And some of them are people of color. Actually, a lot of them are people of color. People like Reverend Wanda Johnson. People like Miss Leslie May. Ms. Erica, Councilwoman Monica Wilson, Councilwoman Tamisha Torres-Walker, Dr. Kimberly Payton, Ms. Frances Green, Devin Williams, myself, Malcolm Miller, Camilla Miller, there's just so many more advocates that would probably be honored to take in proclamations take the Youth Council out of it for just a quick minute you have a whole community that has been here every single meeting without a beat in fact they always sit in these first world chairs if not they sit in the very back But I guess there's some things that just never change because this used to be a sundown town. I don't know if anyone necessarily cared, but it used to be where if you were African American past dark, they was allowed to hang you. And then they also used Highway 4 as a segregation line. That's some of the history. Some of the history here is mind-boggling of how African Americans and people of color have been treated, especially African Americans that are LGBTQ plus community. When are we going to actually make things right with the people that are sitting here every day that actually live in a community that actually would be more qualified to fit in awards? But speaking of qualified people, people just love firing them, don't they? That's why we got rid of the city attorney and the city manager. And who also knows, as African Americans, what are we gonna do? Get rid of the Police Oversight Commission? Angelo Quintos? Let's just get rid of all the people of color. Because, you know, maybe it's time to have, you know, white American? Or what was it that, oh, I'm sorry, when you guys were first sworn in, a guy said, we're getting out of dark ages.

No further public comments.

All right. Any council comments?

Yes.

Just thinking about it. I know that the city of Antioch does have a large non-gender conforming community. And there have been conversations around how that community doesn't feel seen here in the city of Antioch. And I'm also wondering why do I have to go to Concord or Clayton or San Francisco to attend a pride parade? And so people have to leave the city to be recognized and have to force flags on us when we should really be committed to not just a proclamation once a year, but we should be committed to valuing all of our residents, especially individuals in the LGBTQIA plus non-gender conforming community. and so thank you mary for bringing the flag because i know some people um don't want to fly this flag some people actually resigned from their positions because the city flew the flag and so i want to thank you for bringing this for us and i hope that it does go up on the poll immediately i want to thank the rainbow center for coming out here to our community i know that they are the only They are actually not the only non-gender conforming organization serving the LGBTQIA plus community in this county. There are several organizations, but because they are smaller and don't have the resources, they rarely get recognized. Hopefully, if people are providing those services to our LGBTQIA plus community, I hope that you start to come forward and let the city recognize you. I also do want to thank Hisham and his team at the county. Contra Costa County, a couple of years ago, declared gun violence as a public health issue. Every city that has addressed gun-related violence has addressed it as a public health issue. The city of Antioch is the only city that held out and refused to acknowledge gun-related violence as a public health issue. which only in the past five and a half years has a city invested in addressing gun-related violence from a public health perspective. I don't know, but I know I've attended several funerals of young people who have been shot in this city. And I didn't see one other representative from this council or mayor at those funerals. And so I hope that we continue to prioritize violence reduction in the city, continue to frame it as a public health issue, and continue to invest in young people and families impacted by violence.

Any other comments? All right, I'm gonna take a five minute recess until 8.38.

Meeting is recessed at 8.34 PM.

Thank you.

All right, welcome back from the recess. Mr. Clerk, could please take the roll?

39. Thank you. Council Member Rocha? Here. Council Member Torres-Walker.

She's in the back.

Is in the back. Council Member Torres-Walker. Torres-Walker. Council Member Torres-Walker.

Just stay here.

Okay. Council Member Torres-Walker has indicated she is here and present. Council Member Wilson.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Freitas. Present. Mayor Bernal. Here. Thank you.

We have a quorum at 8.39 p.m. All right. Moving on to Item 2, Announcements of Civic and Community Events. Yes.

All right, good evening, council. So it's my honor to present Juneteenth, a freedom celebration. We have our sponsors John Muir and Sun Run this year. We're actually gonna be on Friday the 19th from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Williamson Ranch Park again. We're gonna have our domino tournament, double-dutch tournament. going to have local vendors and food we're going to have more rides and fun games for the kiddos and we're going to have live performances this year we're going to focus on tribute bands celebrating the culture of african americans these bands are well known they go to atlanta they go to florida they're from la they're going to do a great job we're going to have a frankie beverly headline tribute band, and then that's gonna be with Tina Marie tribute band before that. So it's gonna be a fun evening, a celebration of freedom, and we look forward to having as many people as we did last year. So if you need more information, please check our website out. That's antiochca.gov backslash Juneteenth.

Thank you. All right, thank you. Any other announcements?

No other announcements or comments? Regarding Juneteenth? Oh.

Thank you for announcing Juneteenth. I was getting ready to leave, but I thought about this. I said I'd be remiss without remembering last year how the lady tore down the flag. when we up at Williamson Park. But I also would be remiss if I didn't say anything to Councilmember Louie Rocha that the last meeting when both Councilmembers Wilson and Torres-Walker were here, you brought up that why does the city have to pay for the June 2? Why don't they get their own funders? They, they're black people. They, they're black people. I didn't miss it. I wasn't sitting here. I was watching on TV. And I have surround sound when I sit at home. And when I have that surround sound clicker, I turn it up and blast it because I don't have the clicker. My daughter hogs the clicker. But I heard you say they there. We can get funding. All you people have to do. All the maggots have to do is say, get your own funding. It could do it. I'm going to say this on record. I shouldn't even have to say it, but I come from old money. I mean, that look like it. I come from old money. I was raised in a mansion. My family got buildings in San Francisco, Treasure Island, New York, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, even in Florida, named after my family. So I come from a, I don't dress like that, I don't care myself, and I don't live like that, because I like to be myself. I've lived like that all my life. I'm living where I'm living because I like, if I'm gonna be helping the neighborhood or helping the area, I need to live there to see how, what the people need in that area. I need to be around them. Somebody made a remark about me on Facebook, so that's why I'm even saying this. I'm not broke. I'm not poor, the Lord say I ain't poor, I'm black. I'm a black woman, I'm queen of the earth. So if we need to do this, I believe in putting my money where my mouth is. I don't brag or boast. This first time, even people that are my closest people in here have even heard me say this. But if that's your intention that us black folks, they, need to have their, our black celebration, then open your mouth and say it. Be a man, say it out loud, and say the right words so we can plan for next year, because we sure can do it. That's all I have to say.

No further public comments. All right, moving on to item three, announcements of board and commission openings.

Thank you. The city of Antioch has the following positions open. The deadline date to apply is 5 o'clock PM, Friday, May 29th. The Sales Tax Citizens Oversight Committee has three full term vacancies expiring March 2030 and two full term vacancies expiring March of 2028. To be considered for the vacancy position, please complete an application and submit it to the city clerk's office by Friday, May 29th at 5 o'clock PM. The applications are on the city's website and also may be picked up in person here at City Hall. Please email your completed application to the city clerk's email address. You can also drop it off in the water billing drop off box located in the parking lot just outside of City Hall.

Thank you. All right, thank you. Item number four, presentations. We have Youth in Government Model Legislative and Courts Program 2026. Lenay Jackson is gonna be taking us through that. All right.

All right, good evening, Council, Mayor Bernal, Antioch residents. My name is Lene Jackson, and I am the Youth Services Network Manager with the Public Safety and Community Resources Department. Thank you so much tonight for the opportunity to be here and to showcase the wonderful team of youth that made up Antioch's first delegation of YMCA's statewide youth and government program. So I don't want to steal their thunder by any means, so I'm going to let them tell you more about the program and their experiences directly. But I do want to briefly frame what this moment represents for our city. Antioch's participation in this program began as a vision, a belief that our young people deserve the same opportunities, exposure, leadership development, and civic engagement experiences as youth in surrounding communities. In 2021, our department became aware of the Youth in Government program and saw the incredible impact it was having across the region, particularly in cities like Berkeley, where their delegation typically makes up of about 80 youth. At that moment, the Youth Services Department, who really wanted to make a commitment, right, that Antioch youth would be not left behind and that we too would build a strong and thriving delegation that reflects the talent, intelligence, and leadership potential of the young people in our community. Since then, this program has become more than just participation in a conference. It has become part of our broader investment in youth voices in our community, in systemic leadership, and creating spaces where Antioch teens can see themselves as future change makers. Led and supported by our Youth Services Program Coordinator, Mayovi Saucedo, and part-time Office Assistant, Lauren Kadar, this special group of young folks you're about to hear from have participated in this six-month program, fully funded by a partnership between YMCA and the City of Antioch through the Public Safety and Community Resources Department, and we could not be prouder of their accomplishments. So, without further ado, I will turn it over to Antioch's Delegation of Youth and Government Program.

Good evening mayor and city council members. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm proud to introduce myself and the delegates behind me as the first ever Antioch MLC youth in government delegation. My name is and I'm in 11th grade.

My name is and I am in 10th grade.

My name is and I'm in 11th grade. My name is and I'm in 10th grade.

My name is Amadeus Castillo, and I'm in 11th grade.

My name is Maddox Delacruz. I'm in the 10th grade.

My name is Marlee Delacruz, and I'm in 11th grade.

My name is Alina Nguyen, and I'm in 11th grade.

My name is Marina Bermudez, and I'm in 12th grade.

Youth and government model legislature and courts can often seem like a complicated program, so I will do my best to try and explain it to you all. Essentially, the program functions on a local level and a statewide level. On a local level, teens join their delegation and are known as delegates. We make the commitment to show up to weekly meetings where we connect, find opportunities to be civically engaged, and prepare for statewide events. The main function of a delegation within the program is to produce a bill that will be analyzed and presented on the yearly bill docket, which will be debated and voted on during the statewide conferences. Our delegation chose to author a bill concerning the mental health rights of teens within schools. During these statewide conferences, each delegate is placed into a program area, which represents a functioning aspect of the state government, such as the appellate courts or the Department of Finance, things like that. Delegates are able to learn about their program area and how it influences the rest of the governing body. During the two statewide conferences, one being Camp Bob in the fall and the other being the Sacramento Conference in the winter, delegates are able to carry out their roles in their program areas and go through the docket of bills presented by each delegation. I was lucky enough to be able to participate in the conference last year with the Pittsburgh delegation. And I can confidently say that Youth in Government has allowed me to learn more about government than I could have in any other way. As well as how to be civically engaged, cooperate with others, operate in a leadership position, and have fun while learning.

Good evening, council.

I want to talk about why this program matters to Antioch, and it matters to Antioch because it gives youth a chance to participate in something bigger than themselves, bringing us a sense of belonging. It provides youths with the ability to focus on future opportunities, which prevents violent tendencies because youth from all types of backgrounds get a chance to see themselves in the future in a professional manner. Also, this program creates a pathway for youth to see themselves, to play a role in the government and connections to look at specific careers they may want to pursue in the future. This opportunity inspires kids like myself to step outside their comfort zone and branch out and meet new people.

So Camp Bob or Camp Roberts is considered the training session before the final Sacramento conference. Here I learned about the amazing history of the youth and government program while also making connections with delegates from all over California. This is also where many candidates, including one of our own, Siren, campaign for leadership positions such as youth governor, secretary of state, and treasurer. Overall, Camp Bob was an amazing experience and I can confidently say that it brought me and my fellow delegates closer and gave us a special bond that can't be found elsewhere.

Hi everyone, my name is Alina Nguyen, and moving on to our time in Sacramento, this conference was incredibly special for me. As an Antioch delegate, this was actually my very first overnight trip away from my family, especially since I was unable to attend Camp Roberts. It took place over Valentine's Day weekend, and looking back, it was hands down one of the best experiences I've ever had. From the moment we boarded the bus there to the ride back home, it was filled with endless memories. As you can see from the first bullet point, the state conference lasts for four days, split between the convention center and the state capitol. We all stayed at a hotel together, and even though we got little to no sleep, I wouldn't trade it for anything. Our day started early, waking up at 6 a.m. every day to get ready, grab breakfast, and then heading into hours of intense sessions. We would debate, pass or deny bills, and then take a break for a group lunch altogether. And then after all that, we would jump right in until dinner. At night, the program hosted fun activities that really helped everyone connect outside of the formal sessions. We also got the chance to be emerged in a real election for the 2026 to 2027 youth governor. On the last day of Sacramento, there was a live voting and we got to see who would be the next youth governor. On my very first day in Sacramento, I was put right into action. I had to step up and defend our delegation's bill in the state capital in front of other Assembly and Senate members. Unfortunately, our bill didn't pass, and honestly, it killed my mood at first, but the moment turned out to be a major turning point for me. My delegation immediately rallied around me and lifted my spirits. That setback is exactly where I learned how to adapt to change and handle resilience in a professional environment. I made lifelong bonds with my own delegation and met so many amazing new people. Overall, my youth and government experience was absolutely amazing and these are memories I will cherish forever. Thank you.

So I want to present for my friend, Elvin, who's unavailable at the moment. I'm going to talk about his position and then my position. So for Elvin, he was part of California Investment Bank, which is a program area where you pitch your company to the state of California, or what we would call the board. The state of California has a budget limit, so they will have to choose wisely on what companies they would invest in. The board set a number of key sectors for us, the companies to solve. The sectors include education, homelessness, environmental, among other sectors. The groups were given the liberty of choosing what idea they wanted to do, as long as they solve a problem in that sector. There are around six people per group, and quite small, and you really get to know who you're working with. Our group was assigned education. What me and my group came up with was opportunities to provide lower income students with the necessary resources to succeed in school. Each group had a CEO, CFO, and et cetera. CIB is often compared to Shark Tank due to the pitching of your company to the state of California. We had to make a business plan that included products and services, market analysis, strategy and implementation, and many more. Your pitch had to be as realistic as possible, with realistic goals and a real solution to the sector you're solving.

Now.

For me, I chose appellate court. I chose appellate court because I heard there was a lot of arguing in this area. They really taught me how to study cases and look for small details to hold onto with your life. I had to impress a panel full of five judges, kind of like I am right now. And with certain details that you study and present, you have to defend them because they picked apart and judged every single word that came out of your mouth. It was very immersive, and I made friends from far away in the LA area that I still talk to to this day. If you love to argue even when you know you're wrong, then this is the program for you.

Hi there. My name's Skyla McGowan. I was also in appellate court, so I'm going to talk about it a little bit. During appellate court, I learned how to analyze data, argue in favor of a client, make a speech to persuade the judges to vote in my favor. We also learned how to set a precedent law and use Iraq format from previous cases to argue in favor of our case. I actually use these skills pretty much every day in my life. I'm pretty big on debating with people, arguing with people. I use it in things like Socratic seminars, all these things. So it is a really cool program to learn about law and how to properly argue and defend what you are arguing. Thank you.

Hello, Scarlett again. I was accepted to be part of the campaign strategy team's program area, which was a, this was the first year for that program area to be introduced in youth and government. And I'm so glad I got to be a part of it. Delegates had to first apply and then participate in group interviews to be accepted into the program. And once you were within the program, you were assigned to a governor candidate, once the governor candidates were narrowed down to four people. We were able to work as their campaign team, which were completely self-run. We covered a myriad of jobs such as marketing, polling, speech writing, in order to get our candidate's message out to the people. This program area has been my favorite experience within Youth in Government, and I grew so close to my team and my candidate. there was only 11 of us, so we were like our own little tight-knit family, and I'm so glad I got to be a part of it. We created a loving environment between all of the teams. It was not competitive, it wasn't mean at all, and I'm really happy I was able to experience what this program area offers, and I'm really glad that the program will be continuing with this program area in later years.

Hi, once again, my name is Sharae, and I joined Constitutional Convention for a similar reason as Amadeus, to argue. But unlike appellate court and its structure, Constitutional Convention takes everything, wipes it, and starts from scratch. Just as I'm improvising to you, we have to improvise a new constitution, and we debate things based on infrastructure, water, or even if our national food of the state should be in and out. Obviously, we are allowed to stand up and advocate for things, no matter how silly or serious. I even stood up to propose that McDonald's is the better option. Do I believe that? Not necessarily, but throwing out those silly ideas, learning how to debate them, and learning how to attack them when people stand up, raise their hand to attack your points, or even go up to counter you. when that situation arises. And even outside the law, even as I learned to apply in the outside world, I know the Constitutional Convention is a good option because it's taught me to stand up for stuff I believe in.

My name is Marlee Dela Cruz and my program area was legislative house where we debated on whether to pass or kill bills other delegations have written or amended. Two other delegates and I have been defending the bill our delegation worked hard on amending over the past few months. Our bill focused on allowing students to take mental health days from school when they needed it. And even though our bill did not pass, we learned the process of lawmaking and how to pass bills altogether.

As a delegate in the special interest committee, I was able to write my own proposal which was then passed through four to five rounds where it would be judged by fellow peers. Only a few would be chosen to go to the final round, with those selected being sent to the youth legislative house where they would be passed or failed. Overall, I learned a lot about proposals and I would do it again.

Hello. Once again, my name is Siren. And in addition to the Youth in Government program, this March I also participated in the YMCA Youth Advocacy Program and was able to attend National Advocacy Days. I was one of only two students selected from California out of more than 350 applicants to attend this conference. And this program brought students to Washington, D.C. for four days to learn about advocacy, connect with lawmakers, and share our YMCA stories directly with congressional offices. It was a great opportunity to better understand how policy connects to local governments and how young people can have a voice in those conversations. I also got to meet students from across the country with that same goal of making a difference in their communities, and I met with lawmakers such as Senator Schiff and Senator Padilla. Overall, the experience made me more confident to take an active role locally, including being here tonight.

During the program, our delegation made meaningful connections and lifelong friendships, not only with each other but also with youth from all over California. We learned many skills and gained knowledge on things like legislative and court system, running for office, and the importance of voting. The skills we gained are civic engagement, leadership, and public speaking that we will carry on into our adulthood.

Hi, my name is Maddox De La Cruz, I go to Deer Valley, and I think that this program is very important and valuable for many reasons. My first reason is because this program gives students a sense of belonging while also helping them build leadership skills that go beyond their high school leadership. And another reason why I think it's really important is because it gives our, it's, wait, wait. I wrote the same thing twice, all right. It's because it helps our students gather their comfort zones as we network with other people across from California, pass our bills, amend bills, and bond over stuff like meetings, meals, and more. And another reason why this is crucial to our city is because Antioch Youth and Government helps build civic leaders for our future. as we are exposed to political and economic problems while making, amending, debating, and passing bills. Overall, this program is valuable and important as it expands educational exposure, builds useful lifelong skills such as communication, and creates new leaders for our future.

Thank you city council members for meeting with us. I know it's pretty late now. This has been the Antioch delegation. A's up. And we are happy to answer any questions that you guys might have for us.

Well, I just wanted to commend you for your participation in this leadership program. I had the opportunity to meet with some of you regarding the mental health. Looking for, there's different reasons how students can be absent from school, for medical, for doctor appointments, et cetera, and mental health should be one of those excused reasons for someone to be absent from school and the school to be able to still receive their average daily attendance. I think that was the topic, but I really enjoyed meeting with you at Pruitt Park. and to see your interest in preparing for Sacramento, and it's nice to see a follow-up presentation of what you did with that work, and it's really nice. I'm always inspired, just like earlier today when I saw the Earth team speaking. young students for sharing their ideas, their experiences, and their growth in leadership. It always inspires me that the future's in good hands. So thank you for stepping up, participating, and sharing your story with us. Congratulations.

Thank you. We really appreciated you being able to come and speak to our delegation, Council Member Rocha. We were able to meet with Council Member Rocha about our bill topic in order to really understand what we were trying to debate on during the Sacramento conference. So thank you so much for that.

Thank you for the presentation, all your hard work. This is why youth network services is important, right? It's not recreation, it's development, and you all put in the hard work. I actually spent a day, I spent the day in Sacramento kind of shadowing a lot of you. I got to see a lot of you in action, attend some of the debates. Y'all didn't see me, but I guess that's, you know what I mean, it's on purpose. And it was like a real amazing experience. It was intense. It was an intense experience. It was like hundreds of you guys running around in suits and heels and, you know, it's like, oh, my God. But you all were so serious, super serious and committed to the process that you were in. And it was amazing watching that happen. from behind the scenes and it also inspired me. And like, just wanna thank, you know, Director Cabral and the team and everybody who continue to make these things happen for you guys. And I'm waiting, I can't wait to see what the next delegation is gonna look like. I heard that this was Antioch's first. delegation yes it was our first delegation and y'all showed up people couldn't stop talking about you guys and how amazing it was and that they want to see you come back and I just think that speaks to like youth leadership here in Antioch and how you all showed up super professional and focused and prepared and I just want to say you know I hope you guys continue to go and inspire other young people to leadership here in the city thank you all right

Yes, it was so exciting to hear about your trip and your experience to Sacramento. Montserrat, I want to just congratulate you and your team. That was the best investment this city ever made in youth services. Best investment we ever made. And the investment to you guys and making sure your voices are heard. It's very important that we hear from you guys around policy. I'm so excited that you guys crafted policy around mental health and was able to present it. I'm sad it didn't get passed, but that's good to go through a process of working on a bill and working on policy. And if it doesn't pass, you know how to go back and refix and how you have conversations to adjust. and make it happen. I want to congratulate the young, I'm sorry, I can't remember your name. You were one of the two that got to go to Washington, D.C. My name is Sirin. Sirin, congratulations. That's big. 350 people that applied and you were one of two. And then that's just amazing. So you're going to, I mean, you're all, you're going to do good things. You're all going to do good things. You know, congratulations. To me, youth really are important to me. Your voice is important. That's why we lowered the age for some of our commissions for you guys to be a voice on that, to talk about policy. I would love to hear you guys come up and speak to us again about policy that you're thinking about or even policy that we are discussing because we need to hear from your voices because you guys are a part of our community and your voices need to be heard. so thank you thank you thank you congratulations bravo to you all and i'm looking forward to the next delegation but i'm also looking forward to hearing from from you guys as well so congratulations again thank you so much

Well, let me say that you all, each individually and collectively, are very, very impressive. And one of the things, I was a student at Antioch High School many, many years ago. One of the things I really was angry about is that I didn't get to go to Sacramento. participate because every time people would come back and it's like I want to do that so but let me tell you what did happen after I graduated from Davis I made the conscious decision to come back to my community I was born here raised here educated here and so I came back at 22 and at 24 years of age I ran for public office. I beat a 12-year incumbent. And at that time, it was with the Contra Costa Water District. And the division was Ray Road Avenue East. So at that time, 60% of Pittsburgh, all of Antioch, Oakley, and part of Brentwood. So when I say that to you is you've got some extraordinary experience. Never sell yourself short. You're very valuable. And you can have a career in public service. And it is extraordinarily rewarding. But as you witnessed tonight, you also have to have a tough skin. Because not everybody is going to be happy with you. But I just honor you and I hope that you just continue to impress yourself. your community, because we're all very, very proud of each and every one of you. Don't stop. Just keep on going. Thank you.

Right, awesome. I just wanted to say it's great to see you all up there as a team. And you can tell you guys put this PowerPoint together and trade it off. And I love the way each of you had your own unique way of presenting, from notes to phones to nothing at all. And that's really important to know that whatever you guys do, do it in your own style, in your own way. and make it your own, so I just want to commend you all, great job, and thank you for being such a great class to start this off for the city of Antioch, so we're super proud of you, thank you. I know the council's gonna hate this, but I want us to run down there and take a picture with you guys, if that's okay. They're not gonna hate taking a picture with you, just having to get up and walk down there.

Oh, I need you guys to step up, they're gonna kinda get behind you, yeah.

Where's Marset?

Where's Marset?

Marset, come on, come on. Thank you. Marset, there we go, there we go.

All right. Here we go. I need all eyes on me.

I know we got paparazzi, but look here, please. Thank you. Three, two, and one.

Thank you. Can I take one?

All right, do we have any public comment on that presentation? We have no public comments. All right, moving on to the next presentation, Environmental Protection Agency Award Presentation. Elizabeth Borowit, yes. Welcome, Elizabeth.

Good evening, my name is Elizabeth Borwick and I'm the manager for the Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 State and Municipal Infrastructure Section. I'm here today to present the City of Antioch with this year's Aquarius Award for the city's exceptional brackish water desalinization project. Each year, EPA selects exemplary infrastructure projects from a pool of thousands funded through EPA's Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. The State Revolving Fund, or SRF, is a $71 billion federal-state partnership dedicated to protecting America's public health by providing low-interest loans and grants for the construction of critical infrastructure such as the brackish water desalinization project. With funding from the SRF, Antioch was able to construct this desal facility and related pipelines as a way to secure a reliable local water supply. EPA selected the city's brackish water desal project for the Aquarius Award, since it is a model for a community proactively addressing the long term challenges of both of drought and salt water intrusion. The project transitions the city from a reliance on external water purchases to a local high technology treatment system. The brackish water desalinization project now supplies Antioch with a significant amount of water, ensuring a reliable high quality drinking water supply. Congratulations on this tremendous accomplishment.

All right, thank you.

So can I, we have a plaque to give the city.

Hold on.

All right, do we have any public comment on that item? We have no public comments. All right, moving on to City Council Committee Reports and Communications. Council Member Wilson, caught you drinking.

Excuse me, sorry about that. So Delta Diablo doesn't meet until tomorrow, but last week we did travel to D.C., although we did not break the Brown Act. It was only two of us at a time in meetings. So during the trip we did meet with Senator Padilla's office, or at least these are the offices I went to. Senator Padilla's office, Congressman John Garamendi, Congressman Desaulniere, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. And then we made some other stops. But some of the areas that we focused on was infrastructure investment, transportation, water reliability, flood resilience, and economic development. Myself and the mayor, when we were at Senator Padilla's office, we discussed EPA water program, Safe Streets for All funding opportunities, and we also talked about the city of Antioch working in conjunction with Delta Diablo on some infrastructure connections, including the Antioch Pump Station, and even emerging conversations around responsible AI came up and how local governments may need to prepare for future impacts. At the Bureau of Reclamation, myself and the mayor met, And that conversation centered on water smart programs, drought resiliency efforts, water efficiency grants, and desalination opportunities, and long-term water sustainability planning that could benefit the Delta and communities like Antioch. Our meeting with Congressman Desaulniere, the mayor, were you on that? So it must have been me and, oh, it was me and the chief. I think on that, so myself and the chief met with Congressman Garamendi's office. Again, focused on desalination, infrastructure priorities, and opportunities to connect to green energy funding. Congressman Garamendi really, really emphasized there's a lot of funding around green energy. And he talked about federal investment programs. With the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, that was the mayor and I, our discussion focused heavily on environmental infrastructure, floodplain management services, waterfront and resilience planning, and types of large-scale infrastructure partnerships that could support Antioch in the future because the Army Corps of Engineers really focuses on larger projects. So that was really giving us an opportunity of how we can partner with other organizations to bring funding in. During some off time, I was able to step into Congressman Clyburn's office. He's a congressman from South Carolina. Also got an opportunity to go into Congresswoman Lateefah Simon and Congresswoman Cindy Kalmarger. And you may wonder, well, these people don't represent Antioch, but they do on a large scale. That was one thing we heard over and over from both our congressional representatives, that we need to also speak to other congressional representatives so they can hear about projects we're working on and funding opportunities, because that helps when they all vote for funding opportunities themselves. together so if you're questioning why did we go to these offices that don't necessarily represent Antioch they do on a large scale and it was good for them to hear our story and our perspectives and vote on funding issues that are important to us and I'm sure Councilmember Rocha and the mayor will share their meetings as well all right thank you no comment Councilmember Torres-Walker

None of my committees have met. We don't have anything on the calendar yet for future meetings. Mayor Pro Tem.

When is the cannabis meeting? Oh, Jesus.

Except for cannabis, which I know everybody is so excited to hear that nobody got drunk and smoked marijuana in D.C. and violated the Brown Act. Y'all constituents are funny. But I did have an opportunity to attend Assemblymember Ana Maria Avila-Farias' Passing the Torch event to recognize women in leadership in the county. It was an amazing event. A lot of women from a lot of background and work that they do in our community. So that was an amazing event that I attended Saturday. I also just wanna congratulate the community again, and Andrew, and all of the advocates. My birthday was May 12th, and so imagine what a birthday gift it was to hear the governor announce that the city of Antioch was awarded Home Key. And so it was amazing to actually see that published and announced by the governor's office. And so currently working right now to set up a meeting with the developer to talk about what the next steps are, what are the holdups, and what is going on with the NEPA process within the city since we, you know, since a lot of that was held by City Manager Scott, who is no longer with us, and I can't get clear updates, I'll be meeting with the developer on my own to figure out what is going on. So I'm super excited about that and hopefully bringing an update back to the community and all of the advocates for unhoused residents. And I will also be having a meeting in Sycamore with the Sycamore Square owner. Our assembly member, Anna Maria Avila-Farias, as well as our two supervisors, Diane Burgess and Chanel Scales Preston, to see what kind of resources and support can we continue to get in the Sycamore area. If we can't get more resources at the city level, maybe there's some resources at the state level. as well as the county level to be able to bring in nonprofits and provide those services that we committed to as a city to continue to reduce violence and create a safe neighborhood in that area. We ourselves and myself and a group of community members have been thinking about leasing a space on our own and calling it the Sycamore Safe Center. And so a lot of those conversations will be moving forward in the community if you are interested. please reach out. If you are a non-profit community organization or advocate who is not afraid to serve in communities like Sycamore, please reach out because we are gonna be having those conversations moving forward in the community about how we bring more resources to the Sycamore Corridor, as well as having conversations with our supervisors about the Cavallo area, the county building, wellness services, and when do we think some of those things will be hidden in our community. Again, putting resources in our most vulnerable neighborhoods where working class, blue collar people survive every day in the city of Antioch with little to no investment. Thank you.

Council Member Rocha.

Similar to Council Member Wilson, we divided in one or different ways. I had the opportunity, Townsend Public Advocacy, they're the ones that we worked with to set up some of the meetings that we had scheduled in Washington, D.C. I had the opportunity to meet with Senator Schiff's office and talk about the work that's being done here in downtown related to transportation. and Amtrak and they were very interested to learn about the progress that we've made and looking to see what support we might be able to partner up with to see about the work and the investment that we're making and considering the transportation challenges ahead that maybe there might be some partnership, some help we can get there. Also had the opportunity, actually I was with the chief, the chief and I partnered up The other meeting we went to was the Department of Justice and it was really nice to hear the positive progress and the feedback we received on what we're doing here in Antioch and how Antioch is kind of leading the way in how police reform is happening here in California. and there was discuss about the real time crime center funding that is in the process. Hopefully that all works out, that'll come here to give us a better technology for our police department to do the work that they're doing. So it was really nice to hear meeting with representatives in D.C. who represent here in California, that they're aware of the work that we're doing, they're willing to partner with us There was discussion about East Creek and some of the work support funding that we can receive there. So it was nice to see that there's interest from our congressmen or senators, departments at the federal level that are in conversation with us and looking to potentially helping us with some of the goals that we've set for our city. And I don't know, I was impressed that they seemed to know the city of Antioch and were very familiar. Congressman Harder is new to our area. He's from the Central Valley. And I know he's on the ballot coming up on this vote next week. But potentially he could be a representative in this region. And he's very anxious to work with us. He's shared a lot of ideas that he would hope to bring to us should he represent us. So anyway, I was just really impressed with the partnerships that seem to be developing and hope that we can sustain them. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. I won't add a whole lot more, but it was great to meet with our leadership in Washington, D.C. Having the police chief with us helped as well, especially when we were at DOJ's Office of Community Oriented Policing or their COPS office. They were really impressed with the things we're working on here in Antioch and supportive of us continuing in that vein. That was helpful. We just have to send a patch back. I don't know if we've done that yet, but we have to send a patch back to their office. We also, as was mentioned, met with Congressman Harder. He's very in tune with what's going on here in Antioch and anxious to continuing to make relationships here and helping Antioch move our priorities forward. In Congressman Giramendi's office, he popped in, he was out of breath, but he came from another meeting, but he dove right in and was interested in our water, what we're doing water-wise, and then especially about the fact that he wants to help us keep our Amtrak station open and he wants to take a personal interest in that and seeing that happen, that was something he emphasized. So it was a very successful trip. We knocked it all out in two days and got up early and flew out at 6.30 on Wednesday morning. We took a red eye in on Saturday night. We definitely tried to maximize our time and make sure that it was as efficient as possible, and I think it was an excellent trip. So looking forward to seeing more come out of that. On May the 14th and 15th, I participated in a two-day Contra Costa Transportation Authority Board Workshop. That was for board members and for cities to come together and talk about transportation issues and challenges moving forward. There's a lot of discussion about what's gonna be happening with the, call it Prop 63, but the sales tax measure that's gonna be on the ballot in November in order to keep BART and some of our transportation open. as well as what Contra Costa Transportation Authority is looking forward to in the next six to seven years as our funding is gonna be running out and whether or not we're gonna be going forward with a reauthorization of our half cent sales tax. So that was a good couple days over in Orinda. Mayor Pro Tem and I attended the skate park mural ribbon cutting on the 22nd. That was a really nice event. Thank you Shahad for putting that on and super positive. And we got to talk to one of the guys, Angel Reese was one of the, he claims, original designers of the skate park when he was at Deer Valley High School back in 97, I think. And so that was great to see the murals. If any of you haven't seen it yet, check it out. It's a beautiful job done by seven or eight artists out there. And so just trying to improve that and then give the kids and the community a safe place to skate and to... to do their doing out there. I also attended the JROTC graduation ball on Saturday night, super impressive. One of the young men that was up here presenting tonight was also getting some awards at that event. And it was a really positive, it's their first year at Deer Valley High School and they've done really well and they're looking to expand that program. Also was able to do, had a little mayor at the market, farmer's market for a couple hours, had a table set up there for people just to stop by and talk and ask questions. And so that was nice to just have all different folks in the community, folks I've met, folks I haven't met, just stop by and ask questions. Anything they wanted was on the table. And then we had the Memorial Day event yesterday over at Oakview Memorial Cemetery. Again, JR Wilson did an amazing job like he always does with that event in the cemetery. And so it was just nice seeing our folks who had lost their lives in service of our country, honored families, and it was nice. I thought of, Louie, I thought of your dad when I was sitting up there, the fact that he served in the Korean War. all the stories you used to tell about being a tank driver. And so it was just nice. It was a really nice event out there. So that was great. Just for mayor's comments, keep this really brief, but I just, again, want to thank staff, our acting city manager and the department heads and everybody who have worked so hard on our budget this year. It's been a lot, and I think we're close to the finish line with it, and it's been a real collaboration, so thank you for all of the effort. I don't know if people realize, but Antioch is a full-service city. We do everything except treat our own sewage, collect our own garbage, and sweep our streets, but pretty much everything else we do as a city And other cities that are even smaller than us have much larger budgets. And so for Antioch's 120,000 or so people on $100 million general fund budget, we get a lot accomplished here. And so again, it doesn't happen without the staff that is able to take whatever council policies and budgets we adopt and then take those and run with them. So again, thank you for all you do in the midst of turmoil and change and just keeping our city moving forward and providing a great quality of life for our residents here in Antioch. All right, with that, any public comments on any of this that we've talked about? No? No public comments. All right, we will move on to the consent calendar. Does anybody have an item they want to pull from the consent calendar?

I would like to pull out item K. Item K?

Yes. Any other items? All right, item K is pulled. Do I have a motion to approve? Approve the remaining consent calendar excluding item K. Motion from Mayor Pro Tem Freitas, second from Council Member Rocha. Please cast your votes. Sorry.

Motion passes 5-0.

All right. Item number K, resolution adopting the city's local hazardous mitigation plan.

Yes, and I would like to just move it to the next meeting, and I'll bring it back with additional information.

Okay. Do we have a motion to move it to the next meeting, or do we need one? Okay. We will take item K, and we will move it on to the June 9th city council meeting. Thank you. Moving on to item number six, public hearing. This is for public hearing to review the fiscal year 2026-27 city of Antioch action plan for expending federal community development block run, CDBG, state permanent local housing allocation, PLHA, and local housing successor, HS funding, and substantial amendment to the fiscal year 2025-2026 action plan. This is continued from May the 12th, 2026.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Before beginning the formal presentation, I want to briefly frame the significance of this item. The annual action plan represents far more than a funding document. It is effectively the city's annual implementation strategy for addressing some of Antioch's most critical community needs through federal, state, and local housing and community development resources. Tonight's recommendations reflect a coordinated investment, strategy across homelessness prevention, affordable housing preservation, housing rehabilitation, youth and senior services, workforce development, fair housing protectors, and economic mobility initiatives. I also want to clarify that in accepting the resolution, Resolution D, I mistakenly left out the funding allocations that you see in Attachment C. So we amended that Resolution D to include Attachment C. I would also like to present to you our new housing manager, Lisa Villalta. As you know, our amazing CDBG consultant that has been with us for 5,000 years, Terry House, will soon be retiring. And Lisa Villalta, thank you.

We have a presentation.

Thank you, Montserrat. I want to thank my director for welcoming me to the city, as well as Terry House. She has been a great mentor two months in to the job, so I'll do my best tonight. Good evening, mayor, council members, staff, and members of the public. For your consideration this evening is the 2026-2027 action plan for the expenditures of federal community development block grant CDBG funds, housing successor funds, state permanent local housing allocation, PLHA. These funding sources support the goals established by the city council in the 2025-2030 consolidated plan. These funds, as my director mentioned, help advance housing stability, community development, and public services priorities throughout the community. The first recommended action before council is approval of substantial amendment to the current action plan. Staff is recommending the addition of 200,000 of the housing rehabilitation program to replace a Department of Energy grant in the amount of 165,014 that was approved but not received due to federal layoffs. The funds will also address the waiting list of already qualified low income households. The Housing Rehabilitation Loan and Grant Program for the City of Antioch prevents deterioration of housing throughout the city that is owned by lower income residents. It provides both grants up to $15,000 and loans up to $75,000 to address health, safety issues in their housing. This program helps residents maintain their homes, lower the cost of their housing by reducing energy consumption, and have the ability to age in place through the implementation of disability improvements. Housing loans are aged in place throughout, also paid back to the city by 3% interest to ensure that the program continues in the future, which is a great thing for the city. The recommended FY 2026-27 allocates $3,095,902 in CDBG, PLHA, and housing successor funds. PLHA, available, 445,851. Recommended, 445,851. Housing successor, yes. Oh, I'm gonna go into my presentation in a little bit. Yeah, thank you for asking. Housing successor, 1,440,000. Recommended, 1,440,000. We also have CDBG grant is 860,051, which is a reduction of 50,989 from last year. We also have 756,549 in residual CDBG funds of which 350,000 are being recommended and 406,549 are recommended to withhold for future housing projects. These residual funding cannot be expended on homelessness and public service activities. In the public services category, the maximum amount for allocation is 15% of the City's CDBG award, which is $129,007. This means that all public services grants must be reduced from $10,000 to slightly or higher to $9,920. CDBG funds for administration are also capped at a maximum of 20% of the grant and have to be reduced accordingly. And now all funding from all sources support the consolidated plan priority goals in the following slides.

All right.

Council has adopted the following goals for the Consolidated Plan and they are as follows. Homelessness and housing stability, public services and community well-being, fair housing and tenant protections, economic development, workforce mobility, affordable housing and home ownership, administration partnerships and compliance. As you can see, under those categories are each goals. If I may also draw your attention to this chart, which really shows the impact that this program and this funding really makes in our community. From 2025, 2026, data shows as of July 2025 and March 30th, 2026, which is the end of Q3, that through this CDBG funding and all of our different nonprofit organizations that we fund, there are a total of 5,092 individuals that have been served. As you can see, homelessness services and shelters is at 2,713, showing that is one of the most needed sources here in Antioch. You can also see that for public services and community wellbeing, we serve 1,435 individuals. For economic workforce development, Mr. Freitas, we're already doing it. Economic development is a big deal for our city. And little bit by little, we're actually already impacting our communities by serving 370 individuals, which I will go into in a bit. For fair housing and tenant protection, our own department, which is one of our housing coordinators, HAS SERVED BY HERSELF 192 INDIVIDUALS TO OUR FAIR HOUSING AND TENANT PROTECTION PROGRAM. AFFORDABLE HOUSING HOME OWNERSHIP IS AT 188 AND USE SERVICES AT 53. PLEASE NOTE ALSO THAT WE ARE AT 117% OF OUR ANNUAL GOAL. THIS IS ONLY ENDING Q3. WE STILL HAVE Q4 TO GO. SO THIS REALLY signifies how much this funding is doing throughout our community. So let me introduce you to each category. Homeless and housing stability. We have shelter supported services for homeless, homelessness prevention, and rapid rehousing. How many people did we serve? 2,613 in total. What kind of programs do we offer? We offer programs like outreach emergency shelter, transitional housing, and supportive services. For example, we fund organizations like Facing Homelessness in Antioch, Share Community Mobile Showers, which provides showers for unhoused individuals who serves directly to people who need clean clothing and a place to congregate to ensure that they are being given the resources that they need.

We also have winter nights, family shelter as well.

Also, in homelessness and prevention and rapid rehousing, we also support rental assistance, legal aid, mediation, case management, and rehousing support. We fund organizations like Bay Area Legal Aid, Contra Costa, Crisis Center, 211. I thought it was really awesome that we actually fund them. Loaves and Fishes, Shelter Inc., Antioch Renter Protection and Eviction Program. We also have public services and community well-being. And we serve actually 60 people directly through this funding. So what programs do we serve? Dentists on Wheels, Opportunity Junction, Technology Center, which provides workforce development, as well as technology use. And they provide an open lab Monday through Friday, 8 to 5, to all residents of Antioch. And RhodaCare Medical Clinic. In addition to that, more homelessness, special needs populations that are being served throughout our community are seniors, disabled individuals, domestic violence survivors, and vulnerable populations. And these are some of the examples of the organizations that we fund through the CDBG funding. I also mentioned youth. We support abused, neglected, foster, homeless, and at-risk youth as well. So programs include Bay Area Crisis Nursery, Community Violence Solutions, Child Advocates of Contra Costa County, CASA. Fair Housing and Tenant Protection, as I mentioned, our very own Delia, who is watching us probably from home, she has served 106 people directly, people who come in into our office on a daily basis to ask for advice and information on fair housing and tenant protection. More fair housing, City of Antioch. fair housing services, and then again, economic development. We continue to build economic development by expanding opportunities for low-income residents, Cocoa Kids, Road to Success. As you can see, there's Opportunity Junction as well, Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center. Again, it goes back to building our community through economic development through CDBG. And we also have affordable housing and ownership, which is also another one of our goals. And through that, we are expanding home ownership through education, counseling, and support. Programs include Bay Area Affordable Home Ownership Alliance. as well as Habitat for Humanity housing rehabilitation programs. What does this do? It preserves existing housing through rehabilitation, accessibility improvements, emergency repairs, and aging in place. And then we go to our administration, which includes administration of CDBG and housing programs. Thank you so much. This brings me to the conclusion of my presentation, and I'm happy to take any questions that may come up.

All right, thank you. Do we have any public comment? We have a proponent for this. Okay, then let me go ahead and open the public hearing. Public hearing is now open. We have somebody who's gonna speak in favor. Matthew? Matthew, you'll have 10 minutes, up to 10 minutes.

I don't need 10 minutes, but thanks.

I won't take all 10. It's so nice to meet you all. My name is Matthew Hulse. I'm with Contra Costa Senior Legal Services. We have, as I like to say, the best free attorneys in the county. But you do need to turn 60 to be able to use those attorneys. Sorry, sorry, but everyone gets there eventually is the way I like to say it. You eventually all become our clients. We've actually been in the county for 50 years this year, so wish us a happy birthday.

Happy birthday.

Thank you, thank you. And I want to express our gratitude for a city that cares about our seniors. I didn't know this off the top of my head. You may not know this off the top of your head. There are about 17,000 seniors in the city of Antioch. I didn't know that. About 2,000 of them, almost 2,000 of them are rated very low income. We serve seniors of any income. You could be Bill Gates if you lived in Antioch and still get our services, but of course we care the most about our low income seniors. And there are more of them than we can help. So I wanna say thank you, but I also wanna, you noticed perhaps in that excellent presentation that the amount of money that's available this year is less than last year. But you may have also heard that the number of seniors in our state, in our country is growing every year. And unfortunately, due to the fact that when you have a limited income or a fixed income and costs keep going up, more and more seniors are also falling into poverty. And seniors are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population. So it's a growing problem with shrinking budgets, and that's not a very good recipe. So I want to propose that when all of us have been raised, and hopefully raised well by people, that we should not in turn let those people down when they need us. And that our seniors are among those, not the only ones, but among those that we should just not let fall into homelessness. So Senior Legal Services has been here for 50 years, will continue to be here hopefully for another 50 years. We're grateful to be partners with Antioch. We work with a number of segments of the city of Antioch. I'm very grateful for your staff that support us and the finances that you put towards our work. So just want to say thank you for doing the right thing, but also to say there's more to be done. And I only took a couple minutes.

Perfect, thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, this is probably appropriate time. As I was coming to the city council meeting, I got a call from Debbie Toth. Most of us know Debbie because she's the president and CEO of Choice in Aging. The Bedford Center is an example of her program. She wasn't able to be here with us tonight, but she wanted to personally extend her appreciation and thanks. to the City Council, but specifically to the subcommittee composed of Councilmember Louie Rocha and Tamisha Torres-Walker for actually making some of these recommendations that we will be considering tonight. She indicates that there are not a lot of public agencies that fight as hard as we do with regards to some of these services, and she just wanted to acknowledge that and tell you that she's very appreciative herself but more importantly to the senior community that most a lot of these programs serve so for the record i just want to um extend her comments thank you all right thank you uh do we have an uh an opponent to this item okay mr becker

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Just wanted to let you know you're in the running for one of my favorite seniors this year. I know Terry House is number one.

I know she is. She is, but you're in the running. I can't compete.

Thank you. We all know me, so I might use the 10 minutes because I can't just speak for myself, but I have to speak for those most vulnerable in the community that don't make it out here. Some of those individuals that are no longer with us here on this earth since I started this process. And when I say this process, we of course know I'm talking about Homekey. Which... I think was phenomenal that we waited to get all to this point to get an understanding of how CDBG plays a role in Homekey. As a council, we heard that, I don't know, 10 times over the last six months, and then in your staff presentation, I didn't even hear the word Homekey. But what I did hear, I think it was 2020 or 2021 when I first reached out to the city, and our lovely consultant here with the city, Ms. Terry House, and I said, well, what about Homekey, and how do we get that here, and how do we bring some of these dollars together, because I don't fully understand them, and I know that they're complex, but gosh, there must be a way. And then the conversation stopped. And so I said, well, I guess this is my journey to figure out on my own. Even though I live here in the city, and I'm what we would now call a stakeholder. And so I continued down that path myself for another year, an arduous journey, talking to different elected officials and city staff that came and went. Finally, all roads circled back to our housing consultant who had been here all these many years. And I was told, and I quote, Andrew, you're really getting in the middle of things you don't know anything about and you're making it very difficult for people. So then I did a public records request to get a better understanding of the process. And I found I was making it very difficult for people. because it must be difficult when you as a housing consultant for our city proactively reach out to a developer that's based out of the South Bay and say, we have this upcoming CDBG funding round that's gonna be coming online and gosh, it's gonna go great with Measure X and we got a pastor over here at a church that just had the zoning placed on his property and I would be more than happy to bring you all together and help sculpt this process. And wouldn't you know it, that was one of the developers, Noveen Development, that received funding from this same round of CDBG and housing successor funding, the rollover that we're talking about, the substantial amendment that we're talking about. So I said to myself, that's really strange. Why does a developer get a proactive response that doesn't even know about this? But me, myself, who has come time and time again asking for answers gets pushed out. So then I have to go and journey through Homekey, which even though I have 10 minutes, I won't go into because we were all here for the last six years. Or we watched. But eventually Homekey came around, and apparently it was a fit for our city. And we were told, no, we can't give dollars here for this project until we're awarded from the state. Even though the dollars that were committed to the previously approved Project HOPE Solutions had been approved for an acquisition on a property that didn't even have a purchase agreement on it. And that's why the funding fell back. Because the landowner and the developer couldn't come to terms together. But we as a city had already committed these dollars. So then the question was, well, if they have to come back, can they come to Homekey? Once again, reach out to the city and it's crickets. Whether it's a staff member telling me they don't know what the process is, and the person who does know is not here, or whether it's that person that doesn't wanna talk to me, even though I'm a community member and a part of that development group. And so the process continues on. And even though that previous project fell out, before the application for your Homekey project was even submitted, that CDBG funding sat there. Just sat there. And the housing successor funding sat there. I think it's been over a year or two now, close to two years, right? And no conversation, even when we started Homekey, there was no conversation of, well, we can use these dollars here. I don't think it was until Councilmember Rocha, Mayor Pro Tem at the time, said, I keep hearing about these CDBG dollars, and we're trying to save funding. Can we use it? Because we've got the county showing up saying, this is the most vulnerable need, and we keep hearing CDBG saying, this should go towards the most vulnerable need, so it seems like there's a match there. But once again, staff has no response because... gosh, we don't know where the state's at. Even though city manager had been noticed and it wasn't publicly announced, we just wanted to keep quiet on it. So then eventually the conversation has had, well maybe it could be used for this and we can use this or that, so let's start the NEPA process because that's required to disperse CDBG funding. And that's when I got really frustrated. Because you see those NEPA dollars that were used to pay for this? were spent for out of this general fund. That same general fund that is running a deficit. And I didn't get here in time earlier, but some comments were made around discrepancies between $10,000 to $20,000 in budgets, and that was significant to the point that it needed to be called out. But nobody here in staff called out that, We started NEPA, and then we staff abandoned it. So we threw $30,000 away of your money, my money, our money, and nobody even talks about it. So all of these things, if you're tracking individually, can be very frustrating, I imagine. But I think the largest frustration, the culmination of it all, And this is the question I would like you to ask the housing consultant, because I'm quite positive that nobody will get this direct response to me. In all of the years in your experience of affordable housing development and public funding tied to those projects, have you ever sat in a meeting where you're going to allocate dollars to a developer that you never even engaged on? How did Andrew Becker need to reach out to your city partner and say, by the way, they're talking about giving you some dollars tonight? And more importantly, how did we end up from the CDBG to the housing successor funding? Because I understand it's the vague assumption of we're not going to get this thing acquired by June 30th. Correct me if I'm wrong, it's acquisition and pre-development costs as well. And so my understanding is those dollars could be used. Also, even if it is just acquisition, the project has been awarded, the contract is in escrow, so those dollars would be given to the developer and then dropped into contract, and you could write that in your agreement. But instead of doing all that, we said let's do housing successor funding instead. which in the staff report it acknowledges it's dwindling down and it'll go away eventually. Well, it sure will because now we're deviating from the standard practice of these housing successor funds going out as developer loans, which our city representative here said is great for the city of Antioch. So understanding that, Why did you divert those housing successor funds away from a loan opportunity and give them to this developer as a grant? Or if that's not your plan and this is coming to the developer as a loan, why was that not expressed in the original resolution agreement with the developer and an engagement with the developer to find out if that fits within their pro forma or their operating budget? or their capital stack for their development budget? I'm wondering these questions. The developer is wondering these questions. And I think the biggest question to city staff is, why do these questions need to come from the developer through me? I suggest that these items do be held. Because this is the farthest thing from transparency that I have seen the city go in a long time. You're giving dollars to somebody that has had no conversation with you at all about it.

Do you wish a rebuttal?

All right, any public comment? No further public comments. All right, then we will close public hearing. It's now before the city council for deliberation.

I want this to be shared.

My perspective, so the last meeting, which we weren't able to hold in terms of having a quorum, so it was mainly just information that was shared, no action was taken. At that time, we were waiting to see what the funding would come from the federal government. And what we learned was that what was at one time, we were looking at $911,040. what we ended up receiving is $50,989 less than what we anticipated. So that's why there's some adjustments that were said earlier. I think it's from 10,000 to like 9,200. You'll see that in the rollout of information. Back when Home Key was a discussion and looking at how we potentially would be an applicant and potentially if we were to receive the award, what potential funding would we have access to through CDBG or housing successor funding to offset the cost of acquisition? From my understanding and looking into it and asking the questions, that's where those funds could be utilized. And so there was 1.3, as my understanding, 1.3 million that had gone to Hope Solutions and that was not gonna proceed forward. So what we decided to do, Council Member Torres-Walker and I, we requested that we move towards a substantial amendment so that we could look at how we might be able to reallocate funds that were not gonna be moving forward. The dollar amount that was discussed was somewhere around, I think it was $750,000. And I think if you look in this report, I want to say what's been set aside.

Page 11.

Is it, how much is it?

Page 11.

Page 11. Yeah, so what was set aside was above that. I want to say it was $850,000 or is it more than that? I think it was $850,000. It's in here. But anyway, we set aside more funds just in case it was higher than we anticipated. But originally it was $750,000 was what we were told that could only be utilized, those funds, for acquisition, not for program or services. And so that's what was recommended there. And then with the remaining dollars from that, there was the discussion about potentially utilizing $200,000 towards helping with home rehabilitation, helping people who are struggling to be able to have healthy environments. I know of people In my family, I know friends of mine whose parents have benefited from a program like this where they can get assistance with loans for roof repair, for HVAC, for some of the necessities that our elderly really need but can't afford. And then also on the lower income families that are struggling to make ends meet, looking to see how these dollars could go to support. Because one of the things that I, I feel strongly about is I think it's important for us to keep people in their homes and put money there versus having people on the street when it's much more difficult to find shelter and provide opportunities. So to me, in summary, we knew that there was gonna be a budget allocation that potentially could be the same or less. We found out it was less. Hope Solutions was 1.3 million that needed to be reallocated so the substantial amendment was brought forward so that we would have the opportunity to look at how to recoup those funds and reallocate. And so that's where we're at in terms of the CDBG. It's a two-year application. It's the first year programs come in. When I came in as a new council member, Tamisha Torres Walker and I reviewed the applications that were before us, the funding that was being recommended, and that was year one. There's not new applications that come in in year two, it's the programs that were provided funding the previous year in year one come back and were provided feedback on how they've done, It's very nice to see that most of the programs have met their goals and gone beyond that in terms of participation and how they're utilizing their funds. So in summary, we have a budget that came a little bit less than we anticipated. We received information about product report on year one, how those programs that were funded how they did, where they met the mark, some that exceeded the mark, and we still have some time to go. And then year two, Tores Walker and I will be sitting down and looking at programs and seeing potentially moving into year two and what services will be rendered, et cetera. And the substantial amendment, what we brought forward, I'm hoping that we can move forward with that today, because I do believe that with the Home Key Plus program, if we can reallocate those $750,000 to $800,000 to be utilized for acquisition so that doesn't come out of our general fund, I think is a wise way to go. I know that's a mouthful, but I tried to summarize everything because I know there were bits and pieces missing from some of the statements made tonight.

Thank you. Rather than... Is it a loan, is it a grant? I see it in here under page 11, the recommendation for using housing successor funds for purchase. I think it's important to just answer the questions that the public have rather than pontificate and beat around, like the man had questions. Can we get the questions answered in the order that he asked them?

I didn't copy them down, but perhaps someone can prompt them to make.

Well, in order, out of order, I just think, why have public comment if we're not going to answer the question?

I was not involved with the Homekey process other than to explore what it would take to use CDBG funds and what it would take to use the housing successor funds. For the CDBG funds, I identified certain challenges that would be present with utilizing those funds. and for housing successor I identified other, kind of another pathway that would go. All of that was communicated to the city manager, the city attorney at the time, although that's changed. The new city attorney has been briefed on on those challenges and the decision made to that the housing successor funds moving forward with that because Hope Solutions was also allocated I think 1.5 mil of housing successor funds. So the most expedious solution to get the project off the ground is to use the housing successor funds rather than CDBG. If a project doesn't move forward, you can't use any amount of CDBG, not even a dollar, for NEPA or anything else. It's prohibited. You have to have a viable project at the end of any CDBG funding. So it is already the CEQA process for the housing successor has already determined this isn't a project for CEQA. So we can move forward more easily with that funding source.

Is it a grant? Is it a loan? Do the developer understand what it is? Do they have to pay it back?

I'm not involved in any of that discussion and haven't been with the developer. That is up to the city attorney drafting the loan documents. Pre-development monies are usually always loans. But that will be a discussion. There are other issues, I think, that are constraining this property that fall outside of that. I think those issues have to be dealt with first. And then the funding source and who does the agreements, that's not me. They will be making their decisions and talking with the developer. I am not involved in the home key process at all, other than identifying any challenges with the CDBG funds.

But there is a recommendation here to use housing successor funds for the original amount that was committed out of the general fund. So is there anybody in the house tonight that know what they talking about? Anybody talk to the developer? Anybody know what happened with the process? So we just saying, hey, we gonna give you this money not even knowing if they could use it?

I'll need to really look into it to kind of get up to date with what's been happening. But yes, I'll be looking into that.

I'm just concerned. Why will we vote? I don't know if anybody else is concerned about voting to give somebody some money that they don't even, one, know they haven't been notified they're receiving, and two, don't even know if they can use it on the project. Is nobody else concerned about this?

I guess to me, to clarify my perspective, maybe you can help me with the gap here. My understanding is that with the Home Keep Plus project that looks like we're being awarded, that the acquisition of the property is necessary. And that estimated cost was $750,000. And originally... There was 750,000 that was gonna be proposed from our general fund plus 1.2 annually for providing the services with a 34.9 match from the state. That's my general understanding. So part of my questioning back in the beginning was what funding that's available through the feds, through CDBG or housing successor funds, could be utilized for the acquisition so it doesn't have to come from general fund? That was the question. And I believe the answer is, what I'm hearing is housing successor funds can be reallocated in that way from Hope Solutions. So in terms of writing a check to someone or to some developer, that part I don't know about. All I was trying to do is set the available funding so that when we're awarded, we can hit the ground running versus having to sit and wait.

Yeah, but that was a great timeline that all of that did happen, by the way. However, the discussion around grant versus loan comes into play when you discuss in CDBG and housing successor, all of these dollars. Is it a grant, is it a loan? And to my understanding, what housing successor funds are loans. It was going to be a loan to the original developer in partnership with the church. But when they couldn't come to an agreement on the price of the property, then the project fell through, but it was always a loan that they would have to repay. Just like Grace Bible Fellowship and the project on their property, that is a loan that they will have to repay, not a grant. When we committed to Homekey from the general fund, that wasn't in the form of a loan that would need to be paid back. And so my question is that anybody talk to the developer about using housing successor dollars and is it a good fit? Can it work? And if it is in the form of a loan, what kind of constraints does that put on the project is the question that I can't get answered at the end of the month.

Mr. Ray. Yes, sir. And so this, okay, I'm under the understanding that we had to have this on our agenda in order to take any action before the end of this month, yes? Yes, I was told that we're on a timeline. So the question is to the city attorney. Apparently, I don't think we're going to get an answer. Did the developer know? Who talked to the developer? Is it a loan? Is it a grant? I assume that your office is going to be writing up the agreement, correct?

Once it's been negotiated or once we have the terms, yes.

So some of the questions that are being asked tonight from the public and from the council cannot be answered until you actually negotiate an agreement with the developer.

So just as a point of clarification, the city attorney doesn't negotiate the agreements. The city manager and the staff do that. We draft the agreements from whatever terms that they negotiate.

Okay, but you will be provided direction. There will be discussions with the developer. The question of loan versus grant will be recommended or negotiated between staff and you being directed. So none of that can happen unless we approve this tonight. And I assume when staff negotiates with the developer, if the terms and conditions are not acceptable, the project dies.

That would be my assumption as well. I don't know that.

I think unless staff can tell us anything different, if we kill this tonight, Then we've killed the project. Home key is dead. Because we're not going to use the money out of the general fund. I mean, I think the council has been clear on that. That's why it went back to the CBG committee and say, look, y'all, is it legal for us to use some money, either from CDBG or House of Successor?

The question was, what dollars? What dollars can be used? The resolution says. That was passed by this council states nothing about a loan to be repaid back and so to quit the housing success Sir dollars have to be paid back in the form of a loan.

Okay, so Negotiate you negotiate alone, but if it's not acceptable to the developer the project dies home key dies and

I want to just clarify that the housing successor can make it as a grant.

Nice, thank you.

It can be either a loan or a grant.

That's what we need to know.

Somebody answer the question. A loan or a grant? Apparently it can be a grant.

So again...

So we can move forward. Like, nope.

We've got all these people here. I think my light's still on. So the action before us is to approve this in House... I always want to say home, but House Successor Grant Program, correct? Yes. The $750,000, right? Yes. Mm-hmm. And staff is saying yes. And so that's number one. Number two, staff will negotiate with the developer the terms and conditions. And assuming that there is success, this moves forward. If there's no other extenuating circumstance, Mr. Mayor, I would move approval.

Of all three items?

Of all three items.

All right, we have a motion to approve all three items. Do we have a second?

I'll second that.

We have a motion from Mayor Pro Tem Freitas, second from Council Member Rocha. Please cast your votes.

Motion passes 5-0.

All right, that was easy. Moving on to item number seven, proposed updates to the Master Fee Schedule. Is this also a public hearing? It's not, okay. Yes, it is. It is a public hearing? It is a public hearing, yes. Okay, so this is a public hearing. Have a presentation for staff, please.

Yes. Good evening, Mayor and city council members. As you recall, on May 13th, we had a study session on the user fee study where we presented proposed fees against our current fees as prepared by Wilden Financial. They did our cost allocation and fee study. Preeti Patel from Wilden is on Zoom this evening to join us to go through a brief presentation on the user fee study itself. It's attached to the draft master fee schedule, which is exhibit A. And then exhibit B is the user fee study that calculated not only the fully burdened rate of staff, which I know was a concern raised last time about how those were calculated, but also the basis for coming up with the proposed fee schedule. So, if we can have pretty if she's online there. Hi, pretty good evening. So, um, welcome and so, uh, we're going to display the presentation here and I'll move through the pages as pretty directs. Um, so if we can get the presentation displayed, thank you.

And I'll turn it over to you pretty good evening mayor and council members. I don't see the presentation on my end.

Okay, so we have just the... There it is. Okay, great. All right. So I'll go to page one.

All right, what are user fees? User fees apply to voluntary services providing a private benefit. State law requires fees to be a reasonable and proportionate to cost. User fee levels are established through City Council adoption and are intended to recover the cost of services provided. They do not include taxes, utility rates, or impact fees. Next slide, please. When user fees do not recover the full cost of providing a service, the general fund subsidizes those services. This reduces available funding for broader community priorities, such as public safety, community programs, and special events. Over time, continued subsidies can impact service levels and responsiveness. Updating the user fee study allows the city to better understand cost recovery, plan for future service delivery, and ensure compliance with state law. Next slide, please. So the objective of the study is to determine the full cost of providing city services and evaluate whether current fees align with those costs. This includes reviewing existing fee schedules, identifying outdated or obsolete fees, and evaluating whether new fees should be added. The study also incorporates policy direction by identifying appropriate levels of cost recovery. recognizing that subsidies may be appropriate in certain cases. All recommended fees are structured to remain legally compliant and consistent with city goals. Next slide, please. This study evaluated services and fees across multiple departments and divisions. And each of the department was reviewed individually to ensure that the unique nature of its services and operations was accurately reflected in this analysis. Next slide, please. The analysis relied on detailed financial and operational data provided by the city. This included expenditure data, staffing levels, indirect and overhead costs, productive billable hours, and estimated time required to complete tasks. City staff participation was critical throughout the process to validate assumptions, confirm workflows, and ensure accuracy. This collaborative approach helps ensure the results reflect how services are actually delivered. Next slide, please. This slide summarizes the overall methodology used in this user fee study. The study followed a structured process beginning with building the user fee study model. then met up with staff to review and update the fee schedules. We then calculated the full cost of service delivery using fully burdened costs and time inputs from staff. These calculated costs were then compared to the existing fee amounts to determine whether services are under recovering, fully recovering or over recovering costs. Finally, fee recommendations were developed based on the cost analysis, city policies and applicable state law with final adoption decisions reserved for City Council. Next slide, please. This slide describes how user fees are structured and calculated as part of the study. Fee structures vary depending on the type of services provided. Some fees are flat-based and calculated by using fully burdened hourly rates, while others are valuation, deposit, or actual cost-based. Next slide, please. This slide illustrates the components that make up the full cost of service. Cost include not only salaries and benefits, but also services and supplies, indirect support, and system and maintenance costs. Accounting for all cost components ensures that fees reflect the true cost of service delivery and complies with state requirements. Next slide, please. FULLY BURDENED HOURLY RATES ARE THE FOUNDATION OF THE COST ANALYSIS USED IN THE STUDY. THESE RATES ACCOUNT FOR DIRECT WORK TIME AS WELL AS IN DIRECT SUPPORT. USING FULLY BURDENED RATES ENSURES THAT ALL RESOURCES INVOLVED IN DELIVERING A SERVICE ARE CAPTURED EVEN WHEN MULTIPLE DEPARTMENTS ARE INVOLVED. NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE. AND THE NEXT FEW slides will go over the details of each of the department fee groups that we went over so the first one's police it was a time-based analysis using fully burdened hourly rates and the time it reasonably takes to provide the service analysis found that some current fees below the full cost of providing service and the suggested fee notes are to increase 24 fees Six fees would decrease and 29 fees would remain as currently set. Next slide, please. The animal services is also time-based analysis. Analysis found that current fees are not in line with the updated costs of providing services. And it is suggested for an increase to 16 fees and 64 fees would remain as currently set. Next slide, please. Planning is also time-based analysis. The analysis found that current fees are not in line with the updated cost of providing services. The suggested fee notes are an increase to 17 fees, five fees would decrease, one new SB 330 preliminary plan application fee would be added, and then the 12 fees would remain as currently set. Next slide. And for building, time-based analysis. Analysis found that the flat fee services are currently well below the cost of providing services. The suggested fee notes are an increase to 15 fees. One fee would decrease. Four fees would be variably adjusted. 17 fees would remain as currently set. And a program analysis was done for the building permit fees. The analysis determined the current cost recovery is at about 99%. and the recommendation is to set the building permit fees to full cost recovery. For code enforcement, time-based analysis. Analysis found that current fees are not in line with the cost of providing services. Suggested fee notes are increased to five fees. One fee would decrease and eight fees would remain as currently set. Public works, time-based analysis. Analysis found that the fees are currently below the updated full cost of providing services. Suggested fee notes are increased to 19 fees and 54 fees would remain as currently set. Water fees was also time-based analysis. Analysis found that fees are not in line with the cost of providing services. The suggested fee notes are increased to 22 fees and 32 fees would remain as currently set. Marina, time-based analysis. Analysis found that most of the current fees are underfunding the cost of most services. The suggested fee notes is an increase to 14 fees, of which seven fees were increased by 3% CPI, and the five fees would remain as currently set. Recreation and community services. Most of the fees are used as government property and should be set based on policy considerations. Usage factors and market factors, the department is currently operating at around 22% included indirect support. For time-based analysis, found that the current fees are below full cost and the suggested fee notes are just an increase to one fee. One fee would decrease and 137 fees would remain as currently set. And for the miscellaneous fees, those included business license, appeals, liens, copies, GIS maps, special events, and parade permit fees. A time-based analysis approach was used. Analysis found that fees are not in line with the cost of providing services. The suggested fee notes is an increase to 20 fees. Two fees would decrease. One new credit card convenience fee would be added, and 26 fees would remain as currently set. So as a general principle, services that provide a private benefit should recover 100% of their costs. However, subsidies can be an effective policy tool in certain situations, such as encouraging participation, ensuring compliance, or maintaining access to residents. It is recommended that the city consider an annual inflation factor to fees, such as CPI or labor cost changes to avoid large future increases. A comprehensive fee study is also recommended approximately every five years to ensure continued alignment with costs and policy objectives. And that concludes my presentation and we can open it up for questions.

All right, thank you. Do you have anything else to add?

Yeah, there was several follow-up questions on the fee study presentation on the 13th. So we've given answers for the police department fees, community development fees, public works fees, and recreation fees. as follow up if you look on page two and three of the staff report and then in exhibit A for the draft master fee, there's a column for what the current fee is and then there's a highlighted purple column that lists what the proposed fee is and then there's red lines throughout the document updating language for example on false alarms they wanted the council question what was meant by school so that language was updated to state that it's an educational class it's not applying to a an actual school site location for example so with that we can open the public hearing and then address any questions oh yes i do have one question on one of the fees it's on page seven

It's under community development, and I just want to make sure. This is the pool residential map check. So inserted information is building permit fee based on $40,000 evaluation or contract value, whichever is greater. So I'm assuming that on page 8, which is Antioch building permit fees, When we go down the valuation, and please correct me. I'm trying to understand it. So if the value is between $25,000 to $50,000, then the fee is $1,180. Is that what that means?

Yes, and then that's the effective, with permit fees related to new development, when you make changes, the effective date of those changes is 60 date from adoption. So you can see in the first column where it would be the 1180, but then effective July 26, which would be 60 days from tonight's adoption, it would be $1,188.42. and Acting Community and Economic Development Director Scadaro is here. He can answer any further questions.

Is that how it's interpreted? Yeah. Okay, so then the question I have back on page seven, same item, it says proposed fee $60,000. I don't get it.

That means that the valuation would change from $40,000 to $60,000.

So they're raising the minimum valuation, basically. They're raising the minimum valuation. So right now it's $40,000 or contract price, whichever is greater. Now it'll be $60,000 or contract price, whichever is greater.

So with that, then going back to page eight. You know, so the range is between 50,001 to 100,000, so the fee would be $1,960, increasing to $1,973.98. Is that correct? I believe that, yeah, so that would be like the new minimum. I know it was complicated. I just, I thought I figured it out, and I appreciate the affirmation.

Any other questions? All right, this is a public hearing, so we'll open it now. Do we have anybody who would be an opponent to the proposed fees? We have no proponents. Or opponent? Or public comment? No opponents. All right. No public comments. We will close the public hearing. It's before city council for any questions, comments, or a motion.

I move approval.

A motion from Mayor Pro Tem Freitas.

I'll second.

Second from Council Member Rocha. Please cast your votes.

Motion passes 5-0.

Thank you, and thank you, Preeti, for your assistance this evening.

Thank you.

All right, moving on to regular agenda item number eight, tentative agreement between the City of Antioch and the Treatment Plan Employees Association for the period of October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026.

Yes, good evening. So the next item is for council to consider a resolution approving the tentative agreement between the City of Antioch and the Treatment Plant Employees Association. I'm going to have Acting HR Manager Karina present the staff report for you.

Good evening, Mayor, council members. Over the last several months, Acting City Manager Anna Cortez, along with Jason Ewart, Cole Huber entered in good faith negotiations with the TPEA bargaining team, and together have reached a one year tentative agreement, effective October 1st, 2025, ending September 30th, 2026. While most of the agreement focuses on updating article language to meet statutory state language, it also outlines the increase from three to four floating holidays. along with a 1.5 cost of living adjustment retro back to the beginning of the contract for represented members of TPEA. The associated fiscal impact is estimated at approximately 31,000 in fiscal year 2025-26 and $50,081 in fiscal year 26-27. Finance Director Merchant has reviewed the tentative agreement and has noted these funds are fully absorbable within the Water Enterprise Fund. Once again, staff recommends Council's adoption of the resolution. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Do we have any public comment on this item? No public comments. All right, any questions or comments from Council? No? Do we have a motion? I'll move for approval. Motion from Council Member Rocha. Second. Second from Council Member Wilson. Please cast your votes. Motion passes 5-0. All right, thank you. Moving on to item number nine, cannabis business and land use operational guidelines modifications.

Yes, this item before you are proposed modifications to the cannabis business and land use operational guidelines, which were previously reviewed by the Cannabis Standing Committee. We have Kevin Scudero, Acting Community Economic Development Director. Presenting.

Yes, good evening. This will be very quick. So the first thing I want to stress tonight is that the changes being proposed will not change how cannabis businesses operate in the city of Antioch. What happened was we adopted an ordinance in June of 2018. In September of 2018 we adopted guidelines and throughout the years we updated the ordinance. The guidelines restated parts of the ordinance. They were never updated. Our cannabis committee recognized this, directed staff to update it to remove those changes. They reviewed the modifications and now they're recommending approval.

All right, excellent. Do we have any public comment on this? No public comments. All right, any questions or comments from council?

Move approval.

I have a motion from Mayor Pro Tempredis. Second. Second from Council Member Rocha. Please cast your votes. Motion passes 5-0. Excellent. Moving on to item number 10, city council discussion item or naming of the public safety and community resources department.

Yes, good evening again. So this item is a discussion and consideration regarding the proposed renaming of the Public Safety and Community Resources Department. The proposed changes is intended to better align the department's public entity with the current vision and operational focus on prevention. And again, this item is for discussion for City Council to provide feedback. And I'll have Director Cabral to present.

Welcome, Director Cabral.

Hi, it's so good to be seen. Welcome. Good evening. It's been great. The item before you tonight is ultimately about the organizational clarity, public accessibility, and alignment between the department's name and the work that is actually being carried out on behalf of the community every single day. Since its creation, the Public Safety and Community Resources Department has evolved significantly into a multidisciplinary department focused on prevention, intervention, outreach, housing stabilization, violence prevention, youth development, crisis response coordination, and community-based services. While the department continues to work collaboratively alongside public safety partners, the operational reality is that the department functions primarily as a human services and community-centered department. Over time, staff has increasingly experienced confusion from residents, nonprofit organizations, and external partners, who often assume the department is enforcement-based due to the inclusion of the term public safety. The proposed renaming is intended to better reflect the department's actual mission, improve accessibility and public understanding, and align Antioch with broader statewide and national trends toward prevention-oriented community-centered service delivery models.

Oh, I'm sorry. Is that it? Are you done?

Oh, okay.

Okay, I know you're done. I'm sorry.

That's it. It was, you know, the cadence. The cadence felt like I was going to keep on going. It's just that there's so much sometimes that I write, and I'm like, it's not necessary. All right, perfect. I realize it's not necessary.

We got to recommend a name here. Should we just go with it and call it a night?

No. No, I don't. All right. Microphone.

Oh, microphone.

Okay.

You know, number one, I do appreciate your staff report. I think it was thorough. It's a very good example of, you know, how staff reports should be written with the research and everything else. So I do appreciate that. I realize that there has been difference of opinion about renaming it. From my perspective, I would just name it the Community Services Department, period. I'm trying to be all inclusive. make sure that it's flexible now and in the future and it's understandable i don't want to sound like a federal you know department of the u.s government so from my perspective community services department fits all that bill and that's what i That's what I support. So, Mr. Mayor, I know we're going to have a difference of opinion. I'm going to make a motion. I don't know if it's going to be seconded. I don't know if it's going to be passed. If it isn't, then somebody else can make another motion and try to name it and get three votes. But right now, I will move approval of renaming the department to the Community Services Department, number one. With the name change, we also need to change our classifications for the certain positions.

All right, so we have a motion to name the department Community Services Department.

Before we move forward, we're not changing just for clarification. We're not changing classification for the positions, just the actual naming that we still have to bring to the labor unions. And I also want to make mention that with the resolution, you're also approving us to come back to change the code.

Yes.

Okay.

Just wanted to make sure we were crystal.

I will second it so we can have some discussions.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion?

I don't know if I'm supposed to be here. It's late.

I pursued. Do we have a community services department?

We have community development department. So can I ask a question? What about the idea of calling it the Department of Community Services as opposed to the Community Services Department? Sure. Because then it at least leads with it.

And most of our departments here in the city of Antioch have department at the end. So it's Human Resources Department, Finance Department, Public Works Department. So starting with Department of, to me it doesn't really change. The department should stay at the end so that we're consistent with the rest of the city.

No.

So you wanna keep it the way it is?

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah. Okay, so the motion and the second are for Community Services Department. Any other comment, questions?

It's too late to care.

Council Member Wilson, you look, give that look on your face with your microphones on.

I think Tamisha has her mic on. Oh yes, sorry.

No, I just said I don't care, let's vote. Okay. It's late.

Councilman Wilson?

Everybody's okay with community. I personally like the human in, but if everybody's fine with community services, then I'm fine with community services.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Please cast your votes.

Motion passes 5-0.

All right, excellent. Any public comments?

Mr. Becker?

Thank you. I just want to first say, I know it's late, so maybe process is running by me, too. Things were moving so quickly. I didn't hear public comment called on the last item.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah. So I just got a really.

There was. I have my notes written down there.

I didn't hear public comments called. I didn't raise my hand. I mean it's really not okay though. It's really not because what actually just happened was a movement of a public body just moved an item without public's opinion. And you know, my comment, the timer hasn't started. I can't keep coming up here telling the city how to do their business. You can't operate this way. And then it can't just be a simple okay. It cannot. Was it okay when you all ran for office and asked us all to show up and put dollars behind your campaign or to take our ballot with your name and turn it in? When did it not be okay? I'm sorry, that's confusing, let me rephrase that. When did it be okay to just set aside process And Mr. Mayor, respectfully, you come from a background of public service. You can't have a community member out here saying, public comment. And when you just mentioned the Brown Act, we all, unless we need to pull it up on screen, it says that a period of time needs to be made available for public comment, not if someone turns in a yellow paper. I don't turn in yellow papers for this reason. This is incredibly frustrating. I did have an opinion on the name. I did have an opinion on the process. But somehow someone decides it doesn't matter. And it's the same thing as being told by a city staff member, you're making things difficult. Am I making things difficult for you? Because I will say you are making things difficult for me. My emotional health, my mental well-being, You sit up here and you talk about the disparities in our community. My family is one of those disparities. You talk about the deficit that this city runs. My family has those same problems with their bills. This is a place for us to come together to find solutions. And all night long, the only positivity I heard was from the two youth groups that came here. If it takes all of us to have to go back in our mind 30, 40 years ago to when we were young and actually believed that there was hope and opportunity out there, there's sadness in this world. Do you know that some of those young kids walked out of this meeting laughing at what took place here tonight? So no, Council Member Rocha, it's not okay. I don't know what your okay meant, but you can see how I took it. Thank you.