Two Stockton City Council members have called for a vote on whether to remove the mayor’s spokesperson from his role, following claims that he tried to influence an election by pressuring another official.

Often present at council meetings photographing Mayor Christina Fugazi as she issues proclamations recognizing community members, spokesperson Jason Teramoto also helps craft the mayor’s policy proposals, official statements and responses to reporter questions. 

Under Stockton’s charter, or local constitution, mayors are granted a spokesperson to represent their office. The spokesperson is a city employee, distinct from a campaign spokesperson or a private public relations representative.

When Fugazi moved to appoint Teramoto in December, the City Council unanimously supported his hiring, at a salary of about $106,500 per year, per a council report at the time. 

But at the City Council’s regular meeting Tuesday, Vice Mayor Jason Lee asked city staff to schedule a vote on whether Teramoto may remain Fugazi’s official representative.

“Jason Teramoto was appointed by resolution of this council … I’d like to make a motion to add that position to a future agenda. To the next agenda,” Lee said.

To put an issue on a future agenda, two councilmembers must request it in an open meeting. District 4 Councilmember Mario Enriquez said Tuesday he supported Lee’s motion. 

Teramoto didn’t immediately return a request for comment about the move.

On Friday, a Stocktonia report revealed an email between city officials that contains claims Teramoto tried to interfere with the June primary election. 

Sent from Stockton City Attorney Marci Arredondo to the City Council earlier this month, the email stated that Stockton’s city clerk, Katherine Roland, has claimed that Teramoto had sought to tamper with the June race. According to the email Stocktonia obtained, Roland asked city officials for an investigation into Teramoto’s conduct. 

Under Stockton’s charter, the city clerk is responsible for running city elections.

Similar allegations Vice Mayor Jason Lee made against Teramoto last month have “zero merit,” the spokesperson previously told Stocktonia.

At City Hall Tuesday, Lee’s request to put Teramoto’s job up for a vote followed a discussion of a separate investigation into claims of wrongdoing. “I’m just perplexed [about] us discussing better government for tomorrow, when the subject of those emails that have been released is still here,” Lee said. 

The council’s next meeting is Aug. 11, according to the city calendar.

Confidential email released

On Tuesday, the City Council also narrowly voted to make public a completely different official email, sent last summer.

Few details about the message were included in Tuesday’s council agenda, except that the City Attorney’s Office sent it to councilmembers on July 30, 2025 at “approximately 3:39 p.m. Pacific Time.” 

Requested by Lee, the proposal was to waive the council’s attorney-client privilege over the email, which would clear the way for the public and reporters to seek copies of it.

The email may be about former interim City Manager Steve Colangelo, Lee’s comments at council Tuesday suggest. 

“We have to stop protecting Steve Colangelo,” Lee said Tuesday. Colangelo served as Stockton’s chief executive from February to August 2025 and was at the center of multiple allegations of misconduct, including by the vice mayor. 

Fugazi kicked off the discussion, saying she opposed making the email public. 

“This is not something that was an investigation, or anything of the such,” Fugazi said, also saying, “if people want to release attorney-client emails, this is the way to do it.”

In September, the City Council narrowly voted to release a message one of Stockton’s lawyers sent councilmembers hours before the email being discussed Tuesday.

In that message, the lawyer informed councilmembers and then-City Attorney Lori Asuncion that Colangelo may have violated the confidentiality of a closed City Council session. The interim city manager didn’t respond to Stocktonia’s questions at the time.

In November, the City Council unanimously voted to contact the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office and other county and state investigators about possible wrongdoing by Colangelo, including alleged mishandling of nearly $1 million in city money. 

But last month, Assistant District Attorney Richard Price — DA Ron Freitas’ second-in-command — sent Stockton a letter saying county prosecutors won’t investigate Colangelo.

It’s unclear if there’s any link between the claims prosecutors examined and the email discussed Tuesday.

Along with the mayor, District 1 Councilmember Michele Padilla was against making the message public. “We need to move on. Anything in this email should be handled internally,” she said.

After criticizing what he described as the council’s protectiveness over Colangelo, the vice mayor said, “If the council votes not to release it, I’m going to release it anyway.”

Such an action could violate the council’s attorney-client confidentiality. “A single member of the council cannot waive privilege for the City Council as a whole,” David Loy, Legal Director of the First Amendment Coalition, told Stocktonia by phone Tuesday.

Lee didn’t immediately respond to a question about why he’d threatened to release the message.

The council ultimately voted 4-3 to make the email public. Lee, Enriquez, District 3 Councilmember Michael Blower and District 2 Councilmember Mariela Ponce voted in favor of release, while Fugazi, Padilla and District 5 Councilmember Brando Villapudua voted against it.

In September, Ponce voted against releasing the previous city attorney email. She didn’t immediately respond to questions about why she changed her mind Tuesday.

“I thank Councilmember Ponce for supporting transparency,” Lee said later during the meeting.

Colangelo didn’t immediately respond to a request for his reaction to the vote.

Investigation made public

At Tuesday’s meeting, the City Council also voted 7-0 to make public the full investigation underpinning recent findings that the City Manager’s Office didn’t break the law when it created the Office of Public Transparency, Information and Communication, or OPTIC.

In August, the City Council’s Audit Committee ordered an investigation by outside attorneys into whether the City Manager’s Office wrongly shifted money around to obscure OPTIC’s funding ahead of the council’s annual budget vote last June. Colangelo was interim city manager at the time.

Lee leads the Audit Committee, which also includes Padilla and Blower.

An April summary of the OPTIC investigation’s findings stated that while the City Manager’s Office didn’t follow appropriate practices in creating the division, it hadn’t broken the law.

“The hiring process departed from best practice—particularly in foregoing competitive posting and awarding advanced salary steps—but remained within the City Manager’s discretionary authority,” the summary said.

“When allegations are not sustained, we should be honest about that,” Fugazi said Tuesday. “I’m hoping that once this is released, we can … move on from that.”