MARTINEZ — The need to step up public safety dominated discussion as Antioch's three City Council candidates participated in a recent roundtable discussion to answer questions about the biggest issues facing the city.
The televised discussion, hosted by Contra Costa Times political columnist Lisa Vorderbruegen, will air starting Sunday on Comcast's Channel 24. It is also available at ContraCostaTimes.com.
While Section 8 housing assistance remains a prominent concern among residents, many of whom have ascribed neighborhood crime to an influx of families receiving the subsidy, the candidates said Antioch's crime problems have many causes that need to be addressed.
Incumbents Brian Kalinowski and Arne Simonsen are running for their third terms, and challenger Mary Rocha is trying to return to the council she left in 2000, after eight years as a council member and four years as a mayor.
Rocha praised the job the police department has done in recent years but said she would create a diversionary work program to steer youth away from crime at an early age. Kalinowski said some new community partnerships, such as United Citizens for Better Neighborhoods and the Police Activities League, have begun to pay dividends, and that the city should continue to invest in such programs.
Simonsen said that Section 8 is a fundamentally good program that has gotten a bad name, and that Antioch has Advertisementsuffered the consequences of a mismanaged program.
"The city has been very aggressive at making up for the shortfalls of the county," Simonsen said.
The candidates also said they doubted the validity of a federal lawsuit recently lodged against the city by the American Civil Liberties Union alleging discrimination by the police department's Community Action Team against African-American families on Section 8.
"I'm not worried about the outcome. We'll have our day in court," Kalinowski said, adding that he would resign his City Council position if institutional racism were proved to exist within the Antioch Police Department.
When the conversation turned to the recent proposal by council member Reggie Moore to create a community policing tax district to fund police services, Simonsen said he would not support such a tax on the general population, but Rocha and Kalinowski said they favored putting the question to voters.
"Let the people decide," Rocha said.
Another pressing issue in Antioch is economic development. Rocha said the city has not done enough to revitalize downtown in the eight years since she left the City Council. Kalinowski said there are some solid things happening in downtown, including the construction of a new restaurant and the possibility of a future ferry terminal, but that there is work to be done throughout the city.
Simonsen agreed with Kalinowski that the council has to keep the entire city in its sights, and predicted that Antioch would be in good shape once the national and regional economies rebound.
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