ANTIOCH – City Manager Cornelius “Con” Johnson has been placed on administrative leave, the Antioch City Council decided Tuesday evening.
The council vote was announced when council members emerged from a closed session meeting — and came as a shock to Johnson, who said he was out sick Tuesday.
“I have no idea what’s going on,” Johnson told the Bay Area News Group after the decision. “I wasn’t there in closed session, so this is a surprise to me.”
Mayor Lamar Thorpe and Councilmember Tamisha Torres-Walker were absent when colleagues Michael Barbanica, Lori Ogorchock and Monica Wilson voted to place Johnson on leave. Torres-Walker later called for a national search for his replacement to begin immediately.
The City Council appointed Johnson, a former San Francisco police commander and longtime Antioch resident, as the city manager in October 2022, awarding him two-year contract worth $266,400 a year.
The reasons behind his leave are unclear.
Over the weekend, this newspaper reported that the city’s spokesperson blamed Johnson for a quote he provided to a Bay Area TV news station. It turned out that it was falsely attributed to police Chief Steven Ford. The police chief demanded — and received — a retraction from the news outlet.
Johnson later fired the city’s contracted public information officer, Rolando Bonilla, who claimed he was only doing what Johnson asked of him.
When asked on Tuesday evening, Johnson said he “can’t speculate” about whether the council’s vote to place him on leave had anything to do with the false statement attributed to Ford.
“I just don’t know,” he said.
He also questioned if the discipline action was properly put on the council’s agenda, as required under state law.
“If it was a personnel issue, it would have had to be on the agenda, and then actually would have been taken behind closed doors on that issue, but it wasn’t on the agenda,” Johnson said. “So I don’t know what happened … I don’t know how someone can take action like this without me being there, without me being informed.”
An email to City Attorney Thomas Smith was not immediately returned.
“I’m pretty sure they will call me tomorrow and let me know what’s happened and I can have an opportunity to respond,” Johnson said.
While Johnson is on leave, Human Resources Director Ana Cortez will serve as acting city manager. Last week, Assistant City Manager Rosanna Bayon Moore left to take a job as Piedmont’s next city administrator.
Source: www.mercurynews.com