12 Sep ‘This Is About Racism’: Allegations of Improper Meeting Among Antioch Council’s Black Members Go Unproven

(Screenshot captured by Samantha Kennedy / The CC Pulse)

By Samantha Kennedy

A formal response to a Grand Jury report investigating, among other things, an alleged secret meeting between three council members shows the Antioch City Council as a unified front.

But that front — which, according to a 92% unanimous council vote figure provided by Mayor Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe, is much more unified than often portrayed — was shaky and showed a divide that many in the city have been calling to mend.

In 2022, Hernandez-Thorpe, Mayor Pro Tem Monica Wilson and council member Tamisha Torres-Walker met in private and, according to a tip received by the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office, allegedly discussed the Public Works Department, hiring of a city engineer and electoral redistricting.

Such a meeting would have been a violation of the Brown Act, which ensures government business is public and says that a majority of an elected body cannot meet in private to discuss public matters. For Antioch, three is a majority. Violations, however, could not be found beyond a reasonable doubt. 

“If the meeting was so secret, then why are there so many people in this meeting talking about it publicly?” Torres-Walker said at Tuesday’s meeting. “I don’t understand. The whole point of a secret meeting is that it’s a secret, nobody knows, but it seems like everybody knows what happened in these secret meetings, which would make them not secret.”

The only member to vote against the majority when deciding on responses to the Grand Jury report was council member Lori Ogorchock, whose district was moved into Wilson’s following a 3-2 vote approving a new electoral map. 

A private meeting between Wilson, Hernandez-Thorpe and Torres-Walker to allegedly discuss that redistricting was one of the allegations that investigations could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Because of the redistricting, Ogorchock, whose seat is up for reelection this November, is not qualified to run for the seat.

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Council member Michael Barbanica, who abstained from votes regarding the Grand Jury report response at the meeting, called for the three to resign back in July.

“I’m urging the two council members and mayor to step down,” Barbanica said in the July video. “Do the right thing. This is not the way cities are supposed to operate. This is supposed to be open to the public, fair, transparent. This is not transparency.”

Barbanica said he would instead provide his own response to the Grand Jury report.

Members of the public who spoke at the meeting were critical of the investigations and of those who remained adamant that Hernandez-Thorpe, Wilson and Torres-Walker violated the Brown Act, believing that anti-Black racism and politics acted as much of the basis of the opposing views.

“(The investigations and their ensuing backlash) is not about accountability,” said resident Devin Williams. “This is about projection. This is about racism.”

It’s a divide that showed up at the last council meeting, where the appointment of a Black city manager, Bessie M. Scott, led to criticism of her hiring — some of it racist — that targeted her social media comments and qualifications.

One of those comments, which says Antioch should bring back “hangings in town square,” resulted in an investigation by the Antioch Police Department to see if a crime had been committed.

Torres-Walker has previously said she’s been the target of racist remarks and was also critical of those who believe Brown Act violations occurred despite the findings by the Grand Jury.

“No significant findings, no evidence, no basis, but it was us,” she said Tuesday, referring to her, Hernandez-Thorpe and Wilson, the three Black members of the Antioch City Council, “because it’s always us.”

Wilson, who previously was the only of the three to not publicly comment on the allegations, said at the meeting it “was all just a waste of time.”

Hernandez-Thorpe and Torres-Walker have said that the gatherings did happen but the contents of them were not to align votes on certain matters and did not violate the Brown Act.

Racial and political divides in Antioch predate the three Black and progressive council members’ terms but have become increasingly noticeable in recent years. Notably, the appointment of Scott last month and the Antioch Police texting scandal have resulted in instances of racist remarks that are met with vocal opposition.

The next Antioch City Council meeting is Sept. 24.