Antioch moves ahead with bringing police chief under council control

To restructure who reports to the council, it will take a municipal code change.

Antioch has taken the first step to bring the hiring and firing of its police chief under the City Council’s control and away from the city manager.

The move came a week after a scandal broke out in the department when the FBI, which had been investigating officers for other matters, found racist and homophobic text messages involving 23 Antioch officers. The messages dated back to 2019 and ended in January 2022 when their cellphones were seized – several months before Steven Ford was hired as interim police chief. He was given the permanent role in November.

The Antioch council currently oversees only the city attorney and city manager, and would first need to change the city municipal code before taking over the supervision of the chief, City Attorney Thomas Lloyd Smith said.

“City Councils are granted wide latitude in determining how a city will be administered and operated,” Smith said, noting that in some cities the council appoints department heads, including the chief who then directly reports to the council.

The idea to transfer the power to the council dates back to 2021, and it was discussed after that, but Smith said it “never came to full fruition.”

Residents were mixed on whether the change was a good idea.

“I really don’t think one person, the city manager, should have the power to hire or fire the chief,” Leslie May said. “I think the chief needs to have an open relationship with the city council where you can communicate.”

Sandy Hartrick disagreed, saying there needs to be checks and balances.

“I feel like if you guys take over the hiring, firing and management of the police department, you are controlling all the power,” she said.

“So many of the actions that I see out there sometimes tend to make me believe that we’re moving away from a general law city, which is what we are based on, into a charter city where you guys make the laws, you enforce the laws and you decide who is in power of the law,” Hartrick added.

Former police officer and Councilman Ralph Hernandez also said “definitely no,” questioning why the council would want to take on even more responsibility when some members earlier had asked for additional administrative help.

But Mayor Lamar Thorpe clarified that the council had agreed in 2020 to changing the hiring process for the police chief.

“We all agreed to that, because we want it more public. I was a huge advocate, before there was a chief hired, about ensuring that that contract was ratified by the city council because I want to make sure that the chief of police of the city understood that there was also a level of accountability up to this level,” he said.

But the city attorney later determined it couldn’t just be about the hiring process alone, he said.

Contrary to rumors on social media, the proposed restructuring was discussed months earlier, and something the current chief knew was in the works, Thorpe said. He urged people to stop personalizing the move, saying, “This is not about Chief Ford.”

“This is about accountability,” the mayor said. “And today, I don’t know how anyone can argue against this, because we’re seeing why we need accountability.”

In support of the restructuring, Mayor ProTem Tamisha Torres-Walker said in her experience, city managers have not overseen the activities of the police chief, “which is their job.”

“The police chief runs a city department, not a small town or democracy of his or her own. It is a city department that is supposed to be managed.”

But while the city council would supervise, it would not do the chief’s job, Torres-Walker said.

“We don’t run the city, the city manager does even though the city manager reports directly to the council, nor will we be running the police department because that is the job of the police chief.”

Councilman MIke Barabnica, though, said he thought it was a mistake to restructure.

“The reason I think this is a mistake is that the police department’s not an extension of a political arm,” he said. “We are the political makeup of this community. The police chief there needs to be a buffer between politicians and those enforcing laws. … This will set policy for years and years to come.”

Councilwoman Monica Wilson said the events of the past weeks prove that there needs to be a direct line between the council and the chief so councilmembers can be aware of issues such as racist texts, which had gone unchecked for years.

“We are not going to oversee the police department. We just want that direct line,” she said.

With three council members in favor — Barbanica and Ogorchock were opposed — Thorpe directed staff to return with an ordinance the council could consider.

“And to me, the choice is very simple. Keep doing the same thing and be on the side of racism or be on the side of social justice. It’s that simple,” he said.