Stockton Vice Mayor Jason Lee waded into a $62 million conflict between San Joaquin County’s bus system and its funding agency this week.
Lee accused Mayor Christina Fugazi of stifling City Council discussion of the conflict’s possible fallout and called on the state to investigate how Fugazi runs council sessions.
As City Council business got rolling Tuesday, Lee accused the mayor of “hijacking” a discussion he’d requested about the Regional Transit District’s ongoing fight with the San Joaquin Council of Governments, which Fugazi chairs, over millions in state and local tax money RTD says it’s owed.
“I’m so confused at why you’re hijacking my item,” Lee said. “I know why, but — ”
“Excuse me. You’re out of order,” Fugazi said.
The back-and-forth over which councilmember may speak recalled the conflicts between Lee and Fugazi that dominated multiple council sessions last year. In June, a fight between them over who can interrupt council discussion to point out inappropriate meeting conduct ended with Fugazi calling a recess. At an August meeting, Lee called Fugazi’s handling of a contentious discussion “a joke.”
It remains to be seen how this week’s City Council fight might impact an escalation in the bus system conflict that exploded earlier this month.
On Feb. 9, news that RTD’s CEO could be fired led some bus drivers to stop work for several hours. Almost 2.6 million riders depend on the bus system yearly throughout its service area of over 1,400 square miles, according to its website.
Hours after drivers walked off, the bus system’s board voted 3-2 to fire CEO Alex Clifford. Chief operating officer Ciro Aguirre resigned the next day.
Clifford believes the board fired him because the bus system planned to sue the Council of Governments over the disputed millions, and three newly-appointed directors — who make up a majority of the five-member board — wanted him out, he told Stocktonia.
The disputed $62 million consists of California State Transportation Agency funding and money from a sales tax passed by San Joaquin County voters. It’s the Council of Governments’ job to distribute taxpayer money for local transportation needs such as highways and bus systems.
RTD claims it’s owed millions in state transit funding and sales taxes, according to Clifford, while COG claims its requests for the money didn’t meet the parameters, its meeting records show.
As of Friday, the shake-up among bus system leaders continued as the board appointed Kimberly Turner as RTD’s new CEO and voted to make Director Derek Graves, Jr. chair, replacing Director Gary Giovanetti.
But Lee’s attempts to discuss the possible impact of RTD’s problems at City Council stretches back to December, when he requested twice at council meetings to put the issue on a future agenda.
On Tuesday, that topic was finally on the docket. Before presenting information about the bus system, Fugazi said, “I want to make sure that people understand, and (are) able to separate fact from fiction.”
The fighting started when Lee said he believed Fugazi should recuse herself from the agenda item, saying she had a conflict-of-interest. She did not. Through her spokesman, Fugazi didn’t offer a response to that claim Friday.
The PowerPoint Fugazi then presented contained no mention of the $62 million conflict, except one line stating that RTD hadn’t received the state transportation funding. Lee said he’d expected a longer version of the presentation which he’d received from RTD, and that included slides summarizing the conflict and the bus system’s budget.
“Councilmembers on this dais continuously hope that you’re stupid,” Lee said. Councilmembers Michele Padilla and Brando Villapudua interrupted — saying they thought Lee’s conduct was out of order — as the vice mayor rephrased his point several times.
The procedural fighting continued when Fugazi tried to begin the next agenda item. Lee interrupted, saying he’d pressed the button on the dais indicating he wanted to speak. Fugazi moved on.
“We do not oversee the budget or operations of SJRTD, which is why the Vice Mayor’s discussion was not appropriate nor were the numbers even vetted,” Fugazi’s spokesman, Jason Teramoto, wrote in a statement Friday.
Two days after the City Council fight, the council’s audit committee gathered for Lee to present the financial details he said were left out.
After presenting, Lee made a motion for the California State Controller’s Office — which is already investigating Stockton’s city government — to examine how the mayor runs council sessions, and the policies governing them.
“Understanding that we don’t have oversight of the (RTD) funding, we do have oversight of how our meetings are governed, and how we’re able to conduct business on behalf of our constituents,” Lee said.
The motion passed unanimously, with Padilla and Councilmember Michael Blower joining Lee with “yes” votes.
“I didn’t like the way the process got dragged out, and by the time we did get this on the agenda, all the people we would’ve talked to had been fired, and that does raise red flags,” Blower said.
Padilla didn’t explain her vote, and didn’t respond to a question Friday about why she voted “yes.”