City of Antioch*

The Mayor and City Council members have on occasion overstepped their authority in seeking to make personnel decisions, including terminating the then Public Works Director in December 2022, in ways not permitted by city ordinance (Antioch City Code § 2-2.06 and § 2-2.10). The response to this Finding is as follows: The City disagrees with this finding. The Mayor and certain City Council members do not believe that they have overstepped their authority regarding personnel matters which are under the purview of the City Manager and Human Resources. We have instructed the City Manager to send a separate communication with correspondence www.antiochca.gov antiochisopportunity.com . . . . from our Human Resources Department concerning the employment matter involving the Public Works Director that will demonstrate that there was no interference on the part of the City Council. This information will include a timeline and fact pattern regarding the termination in the employment matter referenced, to the extent that the information is disclosable under personnel rules. As noted, included in the City of Antioch's Municipal Code under Title 2: Administration is § 2- 2.10 Council Interference, which includes that the Council must work solely with the City Manager to deal with administrative services, and the Council commits to abide by this and to refrain from interfering with the carrying out of city operations under the administration of the City Manager.

Recruitment and retention of staff has been impacted by the absence of a permanent City Manager and the lack of permanent department heads in multiple city departments. The response to this Finding is as follows: The City disagrees with this finding. The City of Antioch has historically always had a vacancy rate near its current levels. The new City Manager will be completing a vacancy review during the upcoming budget cycle to assess the operational needs of each department and review open positions for both relevancy and necessity going forward. As a follow up to this response, information will be sent to you which shows vacancy rates over time, once gathered and analyzed. The Council has funded certain positions and directed city staff to fill these, and they have not always done so, for example when additional code enforcement officers where authorized. In addition, the City Managers has had to requests that some positions be posted once she arrived and states various reasons hiring has not occurred which relate to operations and the needs of departments, as well as other factors the make recruitment and retention challenging. The process of hiring and recruitment of employees and the timeline for such does not include council directive and is an administrative function of the City Manager. When the Council does contribute it is for initiatives to recruit staff to our city, like the Incentive Bonus to hire policer officers after the Antioch Police Department began to lose officers due to the investigation involving some of its members began in 2023. Too, the City has a reserve fund balance due to the salary savings created because of positions which have been funded, yet not hired. Note that the City had compaction issues in its Public Works Department which impacted the recruitment and retention in that area, and we directed the City Manager at that time to investigate this two years ago. Too, the Council has not seen a General Plan update for years and we are unsure of what type of staffing is needed for the City, thus we must rely on the City Manager to oversee this function and report back to us when she needs support. The Grand Jury also requested additional information be provided on