Stockton Vice Mayor Jason Lee has called on California’s top fiscal watchdog to investigate multiple claims that San Joaquin Regional Transit District leaders have mismanaged the bus system, allegedly bungling its finances and mistreating employees.
On Monday morning, Lee sent reporters a copy of a three-page letter dated June 24, in which he asked the California State Controller’s Office to look into a lengthy petition signed by RTD riders, former bus drivers and ex-transit district leaders alleging sweeping mismanagement by RTD’s current executives and board of directors.
The vice mayor shared his letter to the state with reporters one day before the City Council is scheduled to receive an update about the state of the bus system.
The June 15 petition, a copy of which the vice mayor also sent to reporters Monday, claims RTD executives lack the required qualifications for their roles, and that they — along with RTD’s board — reduced the bus system’s reserves from $62 million to $26 million in just three months, among multiple other allegations.
“When a former board chair, former transit executives, retirees, employees, riders, and longtime community stakeholders collectively raise serious concerns regarding governance and fiscal stewardship, those concerns deserve an independent and objective review,” Lee said in a statement Monday.
The State Controller’s Office received Lee’s letter and the petition, and Lee’s request is under review, a spokesman from the agency said.
An RTD spokesperson didn’t immediately confirm whether the bus system’s leaders have received the petition, or provide a response to its allegations.
Since January, the State Controller’s Office has already been auditing Stockton’s city government over separate concerns of financial wrongdoing and other alleged misconduct. Last month, Chief Financial Office Gilbert Garcia said the state told him that that investigation was almost complete.
As for RTD, the bus system’s leadership saw months of turmoil starting in February, when the board, which included several newly-appointed members, ousted its CEO.
That move prompted a string of resignations and hirings, including the departure of RTD’s operations chief; the hiring, and later resignation, of an interim CEO; and two longstanding board members’ resignations.
Since, RTD has hired a new operations chief, and hired Bearnard Veasley as interim CEO. A former transit director for the Stockton Unified School District, Veasley was the subject of a 2022 story in The Record claiming he’d bullied district employees. Other employees praised Veasley, The Record reported.
RTD has also recently replaced the board members who resigned.
Both were among the 53 community members, bus riders and former drivers and transit system leaders who added their names to the “Vote of No Confidence” petition calling for “immediate outside investigation, audit and intervention” of RTD’s current leadership, according to the copy of the petition Lee circulated.
In addition to former Directors Gary Giovanetti and Les Fong, ousted CEO Alex Clifford and Vince Contino — a former president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 276 — also added their names, as did more than 20 riders and community members.
“We have NO CONFIDENCE in the new governance and leadership and believe that it’s reasonable to demand an immediate external audit, review, and investigation of the recent activities, the management capacity of the existing leadership, and the future financial capacity of RTD if things do not change,” the petition says.
It contains 12 main concerns and allegations about the board and executive leaders, including:
- “Parties outside of RTD” allegedly influencing the board and CEO, and “trying to destroy RTD;”
- The reduction of RTD’s reserves from $62 million to $26 million in three months;
- Leaders diverting federal funding to other agencies, contributing to deficits;
- A lack of appropriate job qualifications among chief executives;
- Other leaders being “forced to choose and sign under duress” pre-prepared resignation letters or termination notices;
- Alleged verbal harassment of unnamed female employees, including being called “greedy” and a “prostitute;”
- Relationships influencing recruitment and termination decisions. The petition noted that Stockton Mayor Christina Fugazi, Stockton’s RTD board appointee Derek Graves Jr. and Veasley have all worked for Stockton Unified.
“We urge at least one elected official, or any agency, with integrity and independence to call for a thorough investigation,” Gloria Salazar, a former CEO and CFO for RTD who signed the petition, told Stocktonia Monday.
In response to the petition’s point about possible relationships between Fugazi and RTD leaders who also worked at Stockton Unified, the mayor said in a statement, “The … speculation that because I and other active community members all served at one organization and therefore coordinated a plan at a completely separate organization years later is absurd.”
Fugazi also criticized a list that Lee included in his letter of laws and policies RTD leaders may have broken, if the petition’s claims are true.
“My advice to Mr. Lee. Number 1, ChatGPT cannot replace experience and understanding how government works. Of the multiple statutes used in his correspondence only one of the six may be applicable,” Fugazi stated.
Nate Knodt, a former service development manager with RTD, was among those who added his name to the petition. “The current management is not fighting for all the funding that RTD is probably entitled to,” Knodt said Monday.
The former manager added that he believes current management has hinted at cutting bus services, “without producing any data or specific information about route service or ridership.”
Before the board fired former CEO Clifford in February, RTD had planned to sue the San Joaquin Council of Governments for allegedly wrongly withholding about $62 million in transit funding the bus system says it’s owed.
Fugazi, who chaired the council at the time, has argued that RTD’s documents seeking the funds were insufficient.
RTD has abandoned legal action against the Council of Governments, the petition claims.
Giovanetti, one of the two board members who resigned, said Monday his biggest worry is the impact RTD leaders’ management could have on those who depend most on county buses.
“Everything else takes second (place) to the service that we provide to people who really have no other way of mobility. People who are visually challenged, physically challenged, students, seniors that are trying to get to the doctor, people who can’t afford a car, need to get to work, get to their shopping done, need to get to their doctors,” the former board member said.
In the letter circulated Monday, Lee said he previously contacted the State Controller’s Office about “public accountability, fiscal stewardship, and oversight of RTD.”
The letter didn’t say when Lee made the prior reports.
The vice mayor didn’t immediately respond to questions via email — including about why he chose today to publicize his letter to state investigators, and whether a State Controller’s Office investigation of RTD would be linked to the agency’s current inquiry in Stockton.
Stocktonia editor Scott Linesburgh contributed to this story.