Antioch, California

attention. We’re starting to see more food options in the downtown area, which we’re hoping is going to energize it for more people to want to be down there.” Meanwhile, Antioch is making sure that it remains economically and environmentally sustainable, which should further help it attract new businesses to locate there. “The voters passed a one-cent sales tax in November, which is going to generate north of $15 million a year for 20 years,” Bernal reports. “It makes the City financially stable, which I think is very important in these times, and something that I think will help us, in the long run, to be able to sustain a quality community.” “Probably our biggest and most exciting project we’re working on right now is a six-million-gallon- per-day, brackish water desalination plant,” he continues. “We’re on the San Joaquin River in the Delta - the confluence where the water that pushes in from the Bay meets the water that comes down from the mountains - so it becomes salty when the tide is high and it becomes fresh when there’s more runoff. We’ve been pumping