Stockton City Council approved mid-year budget adjustments totaling more than $6.5 million following a lengthy and tense discussion, displaying ongoing tensions and in-fighting over how to prioritize limited general funds.
During a later Finance Committee meeting, it was recommended for the council to approve the remaining budget items. The final decision remains with the city council whether to approve or deny the recommendation.
During its April 14 meeting, the staff sought council approval of appropriation requests for the current fiscal year, the total package included about $3.27 million from the general fund and an additional $3.3 million from other funding sources.
Tensions were particularly high when discussing approval for police substations, an issue Vice Mayor Lee has fought for over the last year on City Council. Councilmembers began debating whether there was enough funding or if the police department had enough officers to staff the substations.
Councilmembers Mariella Ponce and Michelle Padilla were among the council members expressing doubt that the city would have the resources and staff for the substations.
The most pressing items that needed funding were approved by the council, and the items that required further discussion were sent to the budget finance committee.
A $50 thousand general fund request was made for a substation at the Villa Monterey apartments on Kent Field Road near March Lane in District 2. Staff said the substation would have an ongoing cost of $48 thousand.
The location is close to where a Stockton police sergeant was shot after a pursuit of a suspected stolen vehicle.
The $141 thousand general fund request was made for a Weston Ranch substation in District 6. The substation would cost $80 thousand annually, according to staff.
Council discussion
Several council members used the opportunity to press for greater investment in public safety, sparking a heated debate over funding for two new police substations.
Vice Mayor Jason Lee argued strongly for allocating funds toward a substation in District 6. He expressed the conversation should center on lived experiences with crime and questioned why the city appeared willing to fund other projects while hesitating on visible public safety measures.
“When I got shot, I actually went to Sierra Vista and called 911 and there was a police substation around the corner and the response time was fairly quick because they were around the corner,” Lee said. He added, “I don’t think ($141 thousand) is too expensive to make our community feel that we’ve lived up to our promise. So we will find a solution for Western Ranch, I’m committed to that.”
Other council members, including Michele Padilla, acknowledged the need for public safety while pointing to the broader strain on resources. Padilla noted that any decision to fund a substation would require careful balancing so that services elsewhere are not reduced, and said the city still needed to clean up parks and provide youth services.
“We all have crime, but then services are going to be reduced, whether it comes from our police officers or our COSS that clean up our streets and our cities,” Padilla said. “So it’s going to be an impact somewhere and it’s going to stretch our Police Department very thin.”
Lee retorted that a 17-year-old died in the parking lot where staff had proposed putting a substation.
“When your son gets murdered like my brother did, you’ll understand the value of a life is more than anything that you just talked about,” Lee said.
District 2 Councilmember Mariela Ponce expressed that while she supports the substations, she is concerned about the stretched resources Police Chief Stanley McFadden had explained at a prior meeting.
McFadden had expressed that adding substations would require shifting existing resources, and staffing issues could impact other operations, with personnel likely pulled from specialized units that handle quality-of-life issues.
“I don’t believe that we have the staff for those police substations,” Ponce said, appearing to read from a prepared statement. “We’re basically adding new officers and we’re taking them away from other departments, and I don’t think that’s right.”
Council Member Brando Villapudua sought input from Police Chief McFadden on how a substation might affect operations, given staffing challenges and potential retirements.
The police chief said that any added presence would be beneficial for community relations but stressed that his primary responsibility remains responding to 911 calls and maintaining citywide coverage.
The council ultimately voted unanimously to approve only time-sensitive items including $500 thousand for the Buckley Cove dredging project, $475 thousand for legal expenses tied to investigations, $150 thousand for the city’s Fourth of July celebration and $35 thousand for improvements at Souza Park Pool, all funded from the general fund.
The other general fund requests which consist of multiple projects and proposals specific to their district, including the police substations, will be sent to the budget finance committee for further review and recommendations of how to spend the remaining $504,925 left from the 2025 mid-year budget adjustments.
Lee also posted on Facebook a letter from Padilla to her constituents in district 1, where she references some of her accomplishments on the council. Padilla writes in her letter that her work includes reducing crime, getting dedicated police units for district 1 neighborhoods, cracking down on mailbox stuff and working to bring a police substation to the community.
“I can’t wait to see my colleague Councilwoman Padilla tonight to ask her about this letter to District 1 voters,” Lee writes in his post. “If you’re telling your folks that you’re going to give them a police substation then you need to tell me why we aren’t giving the APPROVED substation to Weston Ranch!”
During the Budget Finance committee meeting Ponce tried to attend the meeting virtually, but her move was not approved by Lee. In order for a committee member to attend virtually it must be approved by the rest of the members.
Councilmember Micheal Blower was brought in as an alternate committee member. The committee is chaired by Mayor Fugazi.
Vice Mayor Lee originally requested funding for the substation at the Food for Less parking lot, but to reduce costs he agreed to relocate it to the Western Ranch branch library instead. The change reduced the estimated one-time cost from roughly $140,000 to about $39,000, with ongoing annual costs dropping to roughly $7,000 (total project cost around $46,500).
The committee voted two to one to recommend approval for the budget adjustments, which included funding for the substations along with structure improvements and programs. The total package cost is approximately $635,540.
The committee had only $504,925 available in mid-year carryover funds, but authorized pulling the extra funding from the city’s $2 million contingency fund with staff saying they would be able to replenish it at a later time.
Vice Mayor Lee and Council member Blower voted yes. Mayor Fugazi voted no.
Mayor Fugazi explained that her no vote was meant as a delay, until there is enough funding for the police substations and the full package and the Police Department is fully staffed.
“It’s not a deny, it’s a delay, and that’s kind of how I look at what we’ve done with deferred maintenance. It wasn’t a deny, it was a delay because we didn’t have the money,” Fugazi said. “But my view is, we have got to have a fully staffed Police Department before we start allocating to other initiatives, other than stopping these smoke shops that are preying on our youth, side shows that are happening in our street.”
Vice Mayor Lee made his disappointment in her decision clear. He accused her of voting against public interest and breaking promises she has made to the community.
“I have not been in politics as long as you, so I don’t know what being an elected official is, and making promises and breaking them looks like,” Lee said. “This is not about, promises made, and then we don’t have the means to do it. We just went through a whole exercise to show how we could do it. We had a team that said that they can figure out how to replenish it (the contingency funds). We had (Stockton Police Chief McFadden) say that there’s not going to be any impact to his ability to effectively police the city. And we included a substation for a colleague who’s not fulfilled any promise that she’s made.”
The committee’s recommendation will be sent back to the city council for approval at a later meeting.