Should the Antioch City Council hire the city’s next police chief or should the city manager make the appointment as has been done in the past?
That’s the question the City Council will answer at its next meeting on Tuesday when it considers whether to move forward with a proposal to give council members the authority to hire, supervise and remove the police chief. Currently, the council hires the city attorney and the city manager, who in turn appoints and supervises the chief.
The idea of the council taking an active role in hiring a chief first emerged in 2020 and during discussions on police reform in 2021. Later that year, Mayor Lamar Thorpe and Mayor Pro-Tem Tamisha Torres-Walker, during a police oversight standing committee, asked staff for a draft of a police chief hiring process. The proposal included having a community representative from each district taking part in the hiring process, with the council ratifying the contract.
But by 2022, the FBI and District Attroney’s investigation of East County police officers was underway and it was clear a permanent chief was needed as soon as possible to replace Chief Tammany Brooks who had relocated to Idaho in late 2021.
“(Back then during the police reform talks of 2021), what was said was the council should, at minimum – if the city manager is going to hire the chief – they should affirm the contract,” Thorpe said.
But after City Attorney Thomas Lloyd Smith researched the matter, he told the council it could not just hire and fire the chief, but would have to supervise him or her as well if it wanted to change the process. Otherwise, it could keep all of the authority with the city manager.
At a council meeting in April, Smith pointed out that city councils “are granted wide latitude in deciding how a city will be administered and operated” and under government code, has the authority to appoint and remove a police chief. And though Antioch currently has a city council-city manager form of government, the council could adopt new rules to give the council that authority as is done in some cities like Fullerton and at one time, Martinez.
The city attorney noted that while new rules with the council hiring/firing and supervising could enhance communication between the council and chief, they would also create a greater workload.
Even so, Thorpe, Torres-Walker and Councilwoman Monica Wilson agreed to direct staff to prepare an ordinance changing the way the chief is hired, fired and supervised. Councilmembers Mike Barbanica and Lori Ogorchock, however, dissented.
“We originally just wanted to have a role,” Thorpe said of the 2021 discussions. “What we wanted was, if in the event that we weren’t satisfied with the chief, we would have the authority to say he’s got to go, and the city manager would have that authority as well.”
The mayor said in the past the city managers have said the police departments “just do their own thing,” but in light of what’s happened with the culture of Antioch’s police department and the FBI current investigation of some of the city’s police, “it’s not an acceptable answer.”
“And so, the difference here is that we’re going to check in (with the police chief),” he said of the proposed changes. “I’m not so sure that anything really changes in terms of communicating with the council because we made some structural changes a while ago related to communications.”
The existing structure of the city council-city manager form of government is established by ordinance. Therefore, the Antioch City Council would need to adopt an ordinance amending the city’s municipal code to change the reporting structure of the police chief, according to the city attorney.
Antioch Chief Steven Ford announced he was retiring on July 19. His last day is Aug. 11 and the acting city manager is expected to announce an acting police chief to replace him next week.
Tuesday’s regular council session will begin at 7 p.m. in the council chambers at 200 H St.
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