After a 30-year environmental career born during Cesar Chavez’ last grape boycott, Esperanza Vielma is now top policy adviser to incoming Stockton Mayor Christina Fugazi — a significant role amid the transition of power under way at City Hall.
A co-op founder and water rights organizer, Vielma secured the job in a 7-0 City Council vote Dec. 10. In the role, she’ll help shape and push for Fugazi’s policy agenda, run operations for the mayor’s office, and act as an intermediary between the mayor and councilmembers, the job description says. And she’ll do so at a transformed City Hall.
Of the council’s seven seats, four including Fugazi’s will feature new faces starting Tuesday. With the mayor’s gavel, the power to run council meetings and pick who sits on influential council committees will pass to Fugazi from outgoing mayor Kevin Lincoln, who opted not to run for a second term amid his failed bid for Congress in November.
The vice mayor will be first-term District 6 representative Jason Lee, if the new council approves his appointment Tuesday.
The mayor’s office is transforming, too. For example, Fugazi is rebranding Vielma’s role from traditional senior policy adviser to that of “Chief Heat Policy Adviser,” according to a December statement.
“The Chief Heat Policy Adviser will focus on initiatives to secure grant funding, develop cooling infrastructure, and implement sustainable policies that align with the city’s economic development goals, including workforce training, small business support and entrepreneurship,” Fugazi stated.
She says the role will also ensure Stockton’s climate resilience strategies prioritize marginalized communities.
Growing up, Vielma knew how it felt to be sidelined. Born in Merced and raised in Stockton near Airport Way and Eighth Street, Vielma said she was able to attend Stagg High School in the north due to historic busing policies aimed at reducing segregation.
At the same time, Vielma worked at Stockton’s now-closed Heinz Co. plant, she wrote in The Fresno Bee in 2015.
“But my mom pushed me to get an education,” she wrote. Vielma went on to study Spanish at San Joaquin Delta College, and then Spanish and Chicano studies at the University of California, Berkeley, she said.
Vielma got into activism in college, she said, advocating for Cesar Chavez’s grape boycott in protest of workers’ exposure to dangerous pesticides. She then worked at San Jose State University and later in Los Angeles before returning to Stockton roughly 15 years ago, Vielma said.
Around 2013, Vielma started Cafe Coop, which provided office space to local organizations and businesses. Early tenants included Reinvent Stockton, astronaut Jose M. Hernandez’s educational nonprofit, digital marketers, musicians and more, according to Vielma and The Record.
“People were trying to find a place to be able to create, do their work and have support,” Vielma said.
This is around the time Vielma says she met Fugazi. The then-high school teacher was just finishing her second four-year term on Stockton’s Planning Commission and would soon become a city councilmember. Both women worked on the local “H20 Hackathon,” a student competition that Cafe Coop and other groups and businesses started in 2015, Vielma said.
In 2019, Vielma took over as chairperson of the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, a statewide advocacy nonprofit based in Stockton, according to her resume.
The same year, PepsiCo’s Modesto plant and BNSF Railway in Stockton started separate multimillion-dollar projects showcasing low- and zero-emission vehicles and equipment. Through Cafe Coop, Vielma promoted the projects to affected communities, according to her resume. In 2021, she and others started a consulting company under the name Cafe Coop CA, state business records show.
The advocate landed her first city post as a planning commissioner last year after the council did not approve Councilmember Michele Padilla’s first choice for the job, Motecuzoma Sanchez.
In May, the council backed Vielma’s appointment unanimously after Padilla nominated her instead of Sanchez, council minutes show.
Overall, Vielma has been a good planning commissioner in her six months in the post, second-term commissioner Waqar Rizvi said last month.
“(She’s) asking the right questions, and trying to understand the development code and different public hearings that come on the commission,” he said, adding that Vielma is committed to bringing in the best businesses for the city. “She’s passionate about south Stockton, making sure the right businesses come.”
Vielma left the Planning Commission last month to take the mayoral adviser job, leaving the District 1 commission seat open once more.
Vielma says she looks forward to “working in hand” with Fugazi.
“She has that vision, and that vision coincides with the work that I was doing,” she said. “I think that’s why we’re able to work together.”
The vision starts with focusing on the basic necessities that are needed throughout the entire city, Vielma said, including air, water and public spaces.
To round out the mayor’s team, Fugazi has also tapped Leenisha Ward, a transportation company communications specialist, as her public information officer. The council is scheduled to vote on Ward’s appointment Tuesday.
In December, the council also appointed Lynn Smith, a longtime city worker most recently employed at Stockton’s Municipal Water Services, as Fugazi’s executive assistant.
“Her deep knowledge of how the city operates, her established relationships within city offices, and her love for Stockton make her an invaluable resource,” Fugazi said in a statement.