As Stockton’s final City Council meeting of 2025 ended Tuesday, Mayor Christina Fugazi concluded the session with one of the most virulent responses to critics she’s made during her first year in office.
During time set aside for councilmembers’ comments — which capped a meeting that also featured significant votes, including on a new street vendor ordinance — Fugazi lambasted critics she claimed had laid responsibility for last month’s shocking shooting at a child’s birthday party at her feet.
“To blame me for the mass shooting, and council for the mass shooting, is reckless and irresponsible,” the mayor said. “The fact that because there was a ski mask involved, somehow taking that off … would’ve stopped that shooting? Does anybody think that?”
Fugazi didn’t specify who made the comments she was referencing Tuesday. She also didn’t immediately respond to Stocktonia’s request for clarification.
The mayor may have been referring to a quote about the shooting that Vice Mayor Jason Lee gave the website The Center Square, part of the conservative-leaning Franklin News Foundation, earlier this month.
“I’m not going to say that the mayor and the city council is completely responsible because they didn’t pull the trigger,” Lee told the outlet. “But when you don’t invest in communities like these, when you don’t prioritize the lives of young people, you put the bullets in the clip. I’m not going to absolve the council of responsibility.”
In the post, Lee is also quoted as saying he believed the council’s decision last month not to pass a face covering ordinance is allowing people to get away with violent crime.
By the time Fugazi began her comments Tuesday, Lee had left the council chambers.
“I would’ve done it no matter if he was here or not. But the fact that he got up and left, I think that that’s disrespectful,” she said.
In a statement to Stocktonia on Wednesday, Lee confirmed he had provided the quote, and responded to Fugazi’s remarks.
“I have never said that the Mayor does not care about children,” he said. “My criticism — both during Council and in a recent interview — has been about leadership priorities.”
The vice mayor added that he believes there’s still a chance for the often-divided City Council to unify over public safety issues following the shooting, that left four dead and 13 injured.
Fugazi and Lee weren’t the only councilmembers reflecting on the division that dominated council dynamics in the latter half of this year.
“It has been a different year. It’s been a tumultuous year,” Councilmember Michael Blower said. But several notable unanimous votes Tuesday “(give) me some hope … we can put some of the other stuff aside,” he said.
The mayor concluded her comments, which also covered rising health care costs and other issues, with cheer.
“I want everybody to have a safe, prosperous, loving holiday,” she said.
Significant action at Tuesday’s meeting included:
New laws allowing, regulating street food sellers. Rules for street vendors once denounced by sellers from north Stockton’s Angel Cruz Park passed unanimously at council Tuesday, after councilmembers worked with vendors to create the final version of the new law.
First brought to council in spring, the ordinance aimed to clarify that Stockton allows the sale of street food after California’s legislature explicitly allowed street selling in the state. It also aimed to lay out basic health and safety requirements and create penalties for breaking them.
Sellers and their supporters, many representing Asian immigrant vendors and others who have historically run food stalls at Angel Cruz, initially fought the proposal, arguing vendors hadn’t been adequately consulted about what realistic rules might look like. But after months of work alongside sellers via town halls and other collaborative efforts, the council passed the new rules 7-0.
The new law still had a handful of critics among public commenters, including those worried about the environmental impact of vendors’ portable generators. Before the vote, Councilmember Mario Enriquez argued for passing the rules, seeing how they worked and then fine-tuning them.
“Is it perfect? No,” he said. “No ordinance is perfect.”
“If we look at this last year, there is not one ordinance that has been this heavily involved with our community,” he added.
Millions in state money for the Office of Violence Prevention. The City Council voted unanimously to accept an $8 million grant from California’s jail oversight agency. OVP plans to use the money to hire three outreach staffers and partner with other organizations, including Friends Outside, to run a justice system diversion program that would include case management, mental health and substance abuse help, job training and other support, OVP Director Lora Larson said.
The windfall came amid renewed interest in how Stockton is working to reduce violence following a Nov. 29 shooting that killed four people and wounded thirteen at a child’s birthday party in north Stockton.
Council hires new labor negotiator amid police union talks. With the Stockton Police Department’s rank-and-file still without a labor contract roughly six months after the previous one expired, City Council voted 7-0 to hire new lawyers to spearhead the city’s arbitration talks with the union. It’s the first time since Stockton voters passed Measure N last year that police contract talks have gone to binding arbitration after an impasse at the negotiating table.
The new lawyers’ contract will cost $1.5 million, according to a report included in the council agenda. It wasn’t clear from the report why the city is hiring a new law firm.
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