Police and labor groups have funneled nearly $1.2 million into the election for the only open seat on the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors election this November, according to campaign filings reporting 2024 transactions through Sept. 21.
Mike Barbanica, who was elected to the Antioch City Council in 2020, is a retired Pittsburg police lieutenant and owner of a real estate property management company, which he said oversees more than 200 properties in the region. Shanelle Scales-Preston is a sixth-year Pittsburg City Councilmember who has worked for California’s 10th Congressional District since 2001, currently serving as District Director for Rep. Mark DeSaulnier.
Both candidates are fighting to replace Supervisor Federal Glover, who represents the county’s northern waterfront, encompassing Martinez, Hercules, Pittsburg and a sliver of Antioch, as well as a dozen other unincorporated communities. Glover announced his retirement in December after serving on the board for 24 years — the first African American elected to the highest county office, who remains the only person of color in the board’s history.
A little more than a month before the November election, the election is awash with independent expenditures — an unlimited spending mechanism separate from a candidate’s own campaign, which advocacy groups frequently use to bolster their influence in policy-making.
This financial support, in part, illustrates the starkly different ways Barbanica, 55, and Scales-Preston, 46, are campaigning to govern these diverse communities, which contend with different needs for public safety, homelessness, industry regulation and development.
Barbanica is waging a campaign that is based in law-and-order priorities — emphasizing the need to crack down on crime, homeless encampments, urban and rural blight and what he sees as mismanagement of the county’s $5 billion budget. Highly critical of the way the county has historically spent taxpayer dollars, he said he would advocate to craft more cost-effective solutions, such as collaborating with existing landlords and temporary housing programs to help residents find stability.
Scales-Preston is running on a platform that prioritizes collaboration to bolster affordable housing production, transportation access and youth and job programs to support residents, especially marginalized communities. She highlighted the necessity of tackling both big, systemic projects alongside “everyday” issues, pointing to her success funding roof repairs at a local homeless shelter and organizing ceasefire initiatives to quell gun violence in Pittsburg and Antioch.
A political action committee in support of Barbanica collected more than $433,000 by Sept. 21, funded primarily by groups representing hundreds of police officers, dispatchers and law enforcement officials across the Bay Area, according to campaign filings. Subsequent ads, mailers and a website backing Barbanica, who earned 38.7% of votes during the March primary election, were largely financed by the Contra Costa County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, on top of support from the county’s firefighters union, police associations in six Contra Costa County cities and luxury residential developers boasting projects in Antioch, Danville, Livermore and Pleasanton.
Those hundreds of thousands of dollars don’t take into account individual, capped donations that police PACs and individuals, including prosecutors and investigators within the District Attorney’s Office, contributed directly to Barbanica’s campaign.
Additionally, by Sept. 21 the Contra Costa County Deputy Sheriffs’ Association had dumped another $340,000 into a separate committee of “concerned citizens” directly opposing Scales-Preston that has paid for a slew of ads, mailers and billboards.
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While the county’s Board of Supervisors have control over the budget and receive quarterly reports from the Office of the Sheriff, they lack any concrete say or governing power. That dynamic is key at a time when Sheriff David Livingston, who was first elected in 2010, has faced years of ongoing calls for oversight and accountability over his department’s record involving the county’s emergency warning systems, resistance to disclosing police discipline records, response to racial bias in policing and defense of a convicted deputy who shot and killed an unarmed motorist.
During his tenure on the Antioch City Council, Barbanica has openly supported expanding funding and resources — including votes in support of the police department’s failed attempts to continue acquiring military equipment, add resource officers on school campuses and purchase new Taser stun guns.
While Barbanica said he’s “made it very clear to the (Antioch police) chief that anything that he needs support-wise, I’m happy to be there and support him,” he said he also has no issue calling out law enforcement officials on misconduct and pursuing accountability — pointing to his support of arrests following an 18-month federal investigation into an alleged criminal network composed of law enforcement officers in Antioch and Pittsburg.
If elected to the Board of Supervisors, he said he would prioritize inter-agency meetings and work closely with the sheriff’s department to address residents’ criticism and oversight concerns, such as the county’s troubled Community Warning System.
“Rather than starting out right away on the attack, I would much rather work with the county and help them resolve any issues,” Barbanica said. “But calling out problematic things, I have no issue with whatsoever (…) Nobody can stand a bad cop more than a good cop.”
By Sept. 21, independent expenditures backing Scales-Preston, who earned 35.07% of the votes during the primary, were just shy of $402,500 — funding ads, polling and text campaigns through groups representing labor groups for steamfitters, forgers and other industrial trade workers, according to campaign filings.
These dollars have come, in part, from the Steamfitters Local 342 PAC Fund, IBEW 302 Community Candidates PAC, East Bay Action and the Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 104. Scales-Preston was raised in a union household and said she understands the importance of ensuring that these jobs continue to provide safe working conditions and livable wages.
Considering the best way to regulate industry in District 5, said she wants to advocate for ways to help support a “just transition” to cleaner, safer and more energy-efficient jobs. She emphasized the importance of not only keeping existing jobs and economic opportunity intact, but also opening up new youth apprenticeship programs and alternative career pathways.
“I have had the opportunity to be in all these different (legislative) rooms, and I’m excited about bringing different businesses, companies and people I have connections with together to show them the opportunity that we have here,” Scales-Preston said. “The (Board of Supervisors) requires someone who can work and focus on all those things.”
