San Joaquin County prosecutors won’t pursue a criminal investigation or charges against Stockton’s former interim city manager over claims he mishandled city money, according to a letter that was at the center of debate during Tuesday’s Stockton City Council meeting.
Yesterday’s meeting — the City Council’s first at Stockton’s new City Hall on Weber Avenue — featured a broad discussion among councilmembers of the cost and public impact of the many investigations they have ordered since the council took office last year.
A main subject of misconduct in those investigations, which the council ordered throughout 2025, was former interim City Manager Steve Colangelo — who led Stockton’s government operations from February to August last year after the council forced out former City Manager Harry Black.
In November, the City Council voted unanimously to contact the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office about Colangelo’s possible misuse of public funds and other alleged wrongdoing, so prosecutors could determine if he should face criminal investigation.
Vice Mayor Jason Lee had called the November meeting to discuss evidence that Colangelo may have pledged more money than city managers may legally allocate to the Stockton nonprofit Service First, to support its bid for $8.2 million in state funding for behavioral health facilities. The City Council voted to contact the California Attorney General’s Office and the San Joaquin County Civil Grand Jury about the alleged misconduct, in addition to the DA’s public corruption investigators.
As of late June, none of the law enforcement agencies have apparently responded to Stockton’s requests — except the DA’s office, according to the letter presented at City Council Thursday.
Council reacts to DA decision
Dated June 25, the one-page letter is addressed to Stockton City Attorney Marci Arredondo and signed by Assistant District Attorney Richard Price.
Arredondo read the letter aloud during yesterday’s council session at the mayor’s request.
“After a careful review of materials your Office has provided the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office, we have concluded the actions of former interim City Manager Steve Colangelo does not rise to a level requiring action by the District Attorney’s Office,” Price wrote.
The assistant DA chastised the council for what he characterized as frivolous requests for investigations, adding he would implore the council “to learn how to better work out their differences in a manner befitting the Offices they hold and better serve the citizens of the City of Stockton.”
The DA’s office is no stranger to public corruption investigations into local officials: in 2024, prosecutors charged then-Stockton Unified School District Trustee AngelAnn Flores with embezzlement, grand theft and other crimes, culminating in a weeks-long trial last summer.
A jury ultimately acquitted Flores of the charges related to her school district role, but found her guilty of an unrelated instance of car insurance fraud.
During Tuesday’s council meeting, councilmembers reacted to the DA’s message, to which Fugazi said she was surprised by Price’s “terse words.”
Along with Fugazi, Lee has been the main subject of mounting public criticism for roughly a year over how councilmembers manage conflict among themselves. Lee felt the DA’s letter drove home those critiques, he said Tuesday.
“I had to get out of my own feelings when I read it. Because I felt like I was being attacked,” the vice mayor said. “But what it was, was the same sentiment that our community has felt, that they are just frustrated with the fighting, and they want to get us focused on the solutions.”
Response to ‘turmoil’ at City Hall
On Tuesday, Fugazi also announced what she described as a “Mayor-led reform effort” to implement changes the county’s civil grand jury demanded in its latest annual report, which focused on “turmoil” at City Hall.
In its 2025-2026 report, the civil grand jury highlighted what it described as public infighting, leadership instability, conflict, divided votes and other problems within city government.
Fugazi is calling her response the “Stockton Governance Reset,” according to a press release circulated in the council chamber during Tuesday’s meeting.
The mayor’s statement described the response as “a Mayor led reform effort designed to restore public trust, strengthen transparency, protect City employees, improve Council conduct, and ensure that Stockton City Hall remains focused on delivering results for residents.”
As part of the effort, Fugazi will create a public calendar tracking the city’s implementation of the civil grand jury’s findings, the release said.
California law requires subjects of civil grand jury investigations to send responses to all recommendations to a county judge within 90 days, the 2025-2026 report says. In the past, Stockton’s responses have been approved by the full City Council.
The mayor was motivated to respond proactively to the latest civil grand jury findings after the scrutiny that came with the jury’s 2023-2024 report, she said.
“I made a commitment that I was going to go through this line by line,” Fugazi said Tuesday. “As an elected official, we have an obligation to go through this and address the concerns that they have.”
The 2024 report stated that “city government is hampered by a threatening work environment created by the continued harassment and bullying by (209 Times),” a website and accompanying social media account run by a political consultant.
Fugazi drew criticism for presenting Motecuzoma Sanchez, who runs 209 Times, with a city proclamation in March.
On Tuesday, Lee and Councilmember Michael Blower expressed support for the mayor’s planned response to the civil grand jury, and asked that it also include changes jurors requested in last year’s report.
“This council is a byproduct of whatever was broken before, and whatever is existing outside of this room that has influence over decisions being made,” Lee said, without specifying what influences he was referring to.
During discussion, councilmembers also decided to vote at a future meeting on whether to make public an investigation by outside attorneys into Colangelo’s creation of Stockton’s Office of Public Transparency, Information and Communication (OPTIC).
An April summary of the confidential investigation found that Colangelo hadn’t violated any policies or laws.
The council also decided to vote at a future meeting on whether to release receipts detailing the cost of investigations it has requested. Council-requested investigations have cost roughly $700,000, Arredondo said Tuesday, without specifying which inquiries were included in that total.
No update from RTD leaders
Finally, a council update by the San Joaquin County Regional Transit District was canceled after RTD’s interim CEO, Bearnard Veasley, said in a letter read aloud by a city staffer that RTD couldn’t attend due to “severe staff constraints.”
“We simply cannot divert staff to prepare for or attend the meeting,” Veasley wrote.
On Monday, Stocktonia reported that the vice mayor has called on California’s fiscal watchdog agency to investigate RTD after customers, bus drivers and former leaders issued a petition accusing its board and leaders of mismanagement.