The Stockton City Council appointed former San Joaquin County Fairgrounds CEO Steve Colangelo as interim city manager in a 4-3 vote Tuesday night.
A longtime event planner and rental manager, Colangelo will take over from Deputy City Manager Will Crew. Crew has been acting city manager since Harry Black, Stockton’s former chief executive, resigned Jan. 9 under threat of no-cause firing by the City Council.
Initially, Councilmember Michael Blower of District 3 moved to postpone any discussion of appointing an interim to a future closed-session meeting, saying he had not received enough information about Colangelo’s qualifications. Councilmembers Mario Enriquez of District 4 and Brando Villapudua of District 5 concurred.
But amid councilmembers’ discussion, District 1 Councilor Michele Padilla moved to force the vote without further deliberation. Mayor Christina Fugazi, Councilmember Mariela Ponce of District 2 and Councilmember Jason Lee of District 6 supported Padilla’s move to vote on Colangelo’s appointment without further discussion.
Ultimately, Fugazi, Padilla, Ponce and Lee voted to approve Colangelo’s appointment immediately. Blower, Enriquez and Villapudua voted against it.
The city will pay Colangelo more than $20,000 a month in his new role, according to his contract.
Beyond Colangelo’s event-planning career, he ran unsuccessfully for seats in Congress, the Stockton City Council and the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors between 2014 and 2022.
In August 2018, the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds made Colangelo CEO. He then left in January 2020, roughly a month after the California Department of Food and Agriculture published a scathing audit finding the Fairground had sweeping problems with tracking its finances, awarding contracts and other functions.
Conduct scrutinized in the audit spanned from January 2018 and June 2019, the audit report says.
The council also approved censure proceedings against Villapudua amid accusations that he gave someone the middle finger at a prior meeting. The recommendation moved forward after no motion was made to halt the process.
Padilla and Jason Lee had requested the vote in a Jan. 21 letter to the city clerk. Fugazi, Ponce and Enriquez are set to investigate the alleged misconduct as part of a censure committee, the mayor held.
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