17 Sep Q&A: ‘I’ve Produced Results’: Antioch Mayor Makes Case for Second Term

(Campaign photo via lamarthorpe.com)

Interview, Malcolm Marshall

Name: Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe

Age: 43

Employment History: Nonprofit executive at the Sacramento Urban League, First 5 Contra Costa and Los Medanos Community Healthcare District

Public service: Current mayor of Antioch, former Antioch City Council member

Education: George Washington University, Naval Justice School

Party Affiliation: Democrat

After a memorable first term, Antioch Mayor Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe is running for reelection. Running against him are former city manager Rowland “Ron” Bernal Jr. and Rakesh Kumar Christian. Bernal and Christian are both registered with no party preference, though Bernal was a registered Republican from 2000-23, the Mercury News reported.

In his Instagram bio, Hernandez-Thorpe calls himself a “soldier in the political revolution.” He says that means he’s fighting for social, racial, economic and environmental justice.

“We’re fighting for a change in our political process that’s been swallowed up by big money interest,” he told the Pulse. “I don’t think our politics should be so consumed with money that it silences hundreds of thousands of people in the interest of money.”

This interview has been edited lightly for clarity.

Contra Costa Pulse: Why did you decide to run for reelection?

Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe: I’m running for reelection to continue to build an inclusive city that’s safe with walkable streets and a clean environment and welcoming to everybody. It’s not complicated. We’ve got a lot of work to finish that. We had a significant event with the FBI investigation of our police department, and so there’s still a lot of work to finish, to continue to work through that, and to continue to, again, build a city that’s inclusive of all people.

CC Pulse: What is the No. 1 issue facing Antioch right now? How will you address this issue?

Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe: I would say housing and homelessness. And the reason I would put housing and homelessness as one and together is that I think a lot of people are one paycheck away from being homeless. I think everybody’s concerned with rising housing costs, and I think most people are concerned about public safety, though it may mean different things to different people. In one community, it could mean needing speed bumps; in another community, it could be car break-ins. In other communities, it could mean the need to get individuals experiencing homelessness the care that they need. So public safety can mean a lot of things, but it certainly is a top priority, regardless of what it means to people.

CC Pulse: If reelected, what would your top three priorities be?

 Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe: Homelessness, housing and public safety tend to be the top three priorities. Those are things that I think, generally, the public wants focus on.

Being able to usher through the impacts of this FBI investigation is going to be critical. We’re still not out of it, even though some people are facing federal charges, others are facing state charges, and then a few have been investigated for these racist text messaging scandals. What people don’t know is that the [Department of Justice] is here, and at some point, we’ll end up in some type of memorandum of understanding or consent decree similar to Vallejo or Oakland, and that’s going to require a lot of our attention.

>>>Read: ‘Fire Everyone Who Is Racist’: Black Antioch Residents, Mayor React to Police Texting Scandal<<<

CC Pulse: What has changed with the Antioch Police Department, and are you satisfied with the changes that have occurred? Are Antioch residents of color safer when it comes to police than they were a few years ago?

Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe: A lot has changed. I think the Antioch Police Department of today is not the Antioch Police Department of yesterday, and it’s still in transition. We’re hiring new police officers. I’m pleased with some of the reforms we’ve made: body cameras, oversight commission, banning certain techniques that can cause positional asphyxiation; the list goes on and on. Ultimately, the culture needs to change. I see hints of that, but we still have a long way to go.

>>>Commentary: Antioch’s People of Color Live in Fear of Those Sworn to Protect and Serve<<<

CC Pulse: Give the council a letter grade on its performance in the last two years. Where has the council excelled and where has it been lacking? 

Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe: I think it’s important, if you’re going to give letter grades, to compare.

In my first year as mayor, the council took 525 votes. In my first year as a City Council member, with the last mayor, we took 335 votes. So that means I increased productivity of the council by 57% and that was just in the first year.

The remaining three years averaged about in the high 300s in terms of the total number of votes that we took. Most of time, the votes tended to be 92% unanimous, meaning 5-0 or 4-0 votes.

So from that vantage point, I would give us an A-plus because productivity increased. As a result, we doubled the size of Code Enforcement. We launched the county’s first 24-hour community crisis response to date. We’re the only city that does that in Contra Costa County. We’re the only city that provides homeless services directly to our residents on the streets. We provide transitional housing, showers, all these different things.

>>>Read: Angelo Quinto Crisis Team Will Give Others the Chance He Never Got<<<

We launched the city’s first public safety community resources office, which is modeled after Richmond’s Office of Neighborhood Safety. That includes youth programs, our gun violence interruption program, our homeless services, environmental resources, and a host of other things.

We were the first city to apologize to early Chinese immigrants for our historic wrongs. We were the first city to fly the Progress Pride flag 360 days out of the year, because we saw many former officials of our city trashing the LGBTQ+ community, and we wanted everybody to know that this is a place for you.

CC Pulse: How can racial tensions in Antioch be eased?

Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe: Any racial tensions are just part of the maturation process. Up until the 1990s, [Antioch] was exclusively white. And it wasn’t by accident; it was by design. Thirty years later, we are the second-most diverse city in the San Francisco Bay Area for various factors, including race and socioeconomic background. So this idea of racial tensions, as if they were absent of any larger context, I wouldn’t agree with. This is exactly what should be happening, because this is an evolving city. Same with the police department. It had to happen, or else how would we ever know that there were, in fact, some racists in our department. And I just see it as a part of a natural process of growing and evolving. We’re becoming a stronger, better city.

I think that there is a small group of people in Antioch who have not gotten over the fact that, No. 1, the Civil War was won by the North, and No. 2, their city has changed. But I don’t think that’s representative of the entire city. And I think people who find themselves in that position are the people who tend to be the loudest because they have no other recourse. 

CC Pulse: Why should voters choose you to lead the city again?

LHT: I ran to produce results. People didn’t vote for me for any other reason than to produce results. I’ve produced results.