Stockton council to revisit OPTIC and Service First recovery center

Nearly three months after ordering a review of Stockton’s communications office, the City Council will receive an internal assessment Tuesday that found the city lacked a formal system for measuring whether its communications work was effective.

The council will also consider maintaining a $300,000 contribution to Service First of Northern California’s planned behavioral health recovery center after the seller of its original property backed out of the deal, forcing the nonprofit to seek approval for a new site.

Councilmembers are also scheduled to vote on Stockton’s 2026-28 Economic Development Action Plan, which outlines priorities including downtown housing and redevelopment, business recruitment, advanced manufacturing and efforts to attract additional grocery stores.

OPTIC returns with assessment after council-ordered review

Councilmembers will receive an organizational assessment, communications inventory and improvement plan for the Office of Public Transparency, Information and Communication, known as OPTIC, nearly three months after they ordered a review of the office during budget deliberations.

When the council unanimously approved Stockton’s more than $1 billion budget on June 9, Vice Mayor Jason Lee added a requirement directing City Manager Johnny Ford to return within 30 days with an assessment and plan for OPTIC, including how its funding, staffing and efforts were being used.

At the time, the new budget set aside just over $1 million for OPTIC’s staffing and operations, including about $818,000 from the General Fund. 

The assessment scheduled for Tuesday covers a 30-day period from July 2 through Aug. 3. It was prepared internally by Public Information Officer Tony Mannor, who oversees OPTIC, rather than by an outside investigator.

OPTIC was created under former interim City Manager Steve Colangelo using resources in the City Manager’s Office that had previously supported the Office of Performance and Data Analytics. Its creation drew scrutiny after councilmembers questioned why the new office was not clearly identified in the city budget.

An outside investigation released earlier this year found no evidence that city policies or laws were violated in creating or funding OPTIC, but described the process as “rushed and at times, confusing.” Investigators also found that hiring for three positions departed from customary competitive practices. 

The new assessment identifies a different problem: The city had no formal system for determining whether its communications work was producing results.

According to the report, there was no baseline, no department-level performance indicators and no public dashboard for measuring communications outcomes. Although OPTIC previously presented a communications plan containing output targets, including social media goals, the new assessment says the city lacked a broader system for measuring the impact of that work. 

Staff reported several results from the assessment period. The city’s website accessibility score increased from 41 to 95 out of 100, according to the report, and all media inquiries logged under a newly created tracking system were acknowledged within one business day. Social media engagement increased 36.2% from Jan. 1 through Aug. 26 compared with the same period in 2025.

The assessment also identified widespread problems with broken links on the city’s website. The page users see when a link does not work received 72,871 views over the previous year, making it the fifth-most-viewed page on the city’s website, according to the report. City staff said the problem predated the current assessment and is now being addressed as part of the website redesign. 

OPTIC is proposing 13 recommendations, including creating three to five performance indicators for each department, adopting a standardized media response protocol, developing a citywide communications and public engagement strategy and creating a public performance dashboard.

The office is expected to return to the council with 60- and 90-day progress reports. Tuesday’s presentation is informational, requires no council action and does not request additional funding.

Service First seeks approval to move recovery center

The council will also consider allowing the non-profit group Service First of Northern California to move its planned behavioral health recovery center to 807 N. El Dorado St. while maintaining a previously approved city contribution of up to $300,000.

Service First received a conditional $8.24 million award from the California Department of Health Care Services for a recovery center originally planned at 1005 N. El Dorado St. The grant requires matching funds equal to 10% of the state award, or about $824,000.

The proposed center would include 16 residential substance use disorder treatment beds, 72 outpatient treatment slots, 16 social rehabilitation beds and four peer respite beds.

The seller of the original property canceled the real estate transaction in July, according to a city staff report. Service First then identified 807 N. El Dorado St. as an alternative site.

A purchase agreement included in Tuesday’s council packet lists a $2 million purchase price for the new property.

The site change comes nearly a year after the project became the subject of a City Hall controversy involving Colangelo.

In November, Lee circulated a June 30, 2025 letter signed by Colangelo stating that the city intended to provide matching funds for the Service First project. Stocktonia authenticated the letter with the city clerk. At the time the letter was issued, the City Council had not approved the roughly $824,000 match required for the state award.

State records included in Tuesday’s packet provide additional detail about that timeline. The state’s grant administrator received verbal confirmation from Service First on June 25, 2025, that Stockton would pledge the required match. On July 15, the administrator received the June 30 letter signed by Colangelo. By Nov. 4, state officials had been notified that Colangelo had left the city and that his authority to pledge the money was under review.

The council later voted unanimously to refer questions surrounding Colangelo’s actions to the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office, the California Attorney General’s Office and the county Civil Grand Jury. Service First President Vernell Hill Jr. told the council at the time that he rejected suggestions that he or his organization had acted improperly. 

The District Attorney’s Office later declined to pursue a criminal investigation or charges. In a June 25 letter, Assistant District Attorney Richard Price said Colangelo’s actions did not rise to a level requiring action by prosecutors. 

The council separately approved a smaller, conditional $300,000 contribution to Service First in November. An initial staff proposal identified affordable housing money as the funding source, but a memo issued to the council Nov. 18 said those funds were not allowable and instead identified money from California’s opioid settlement fund.

That $300,000 remains available, according to the current staff report.

Service First now faces a Sept. 3 deadline from the state to secure control of the replacement property, initiate a formal scope change, provide detailed plans, obtain letters supporting the move from Stockton and San Joaquin County Behavioral Health Services and submit its purchase agreement.

If those requirements are met, city staff recommends issuing the $300,000 as a grant that could be used for acquisition, construction or rehabilitation. The agreement would carry a 30-year compliance period, with a deed of trust and regulatory agreement recorded against the property to secure the city’s investment.

Stockton considers new three-year economic development plan

Councilmembers will also vote on a three-year plan outlining where the city wants to focus its business recruitment and redevelopment efforts through 2028.

The Economic Development Action Plan contains 10 areas of focus and would be reviewed annually to account for changing market conditions, available development sites and council priorities.

One goal is to diversify Stockton’s industrial base beyond logistics and warehousing. The plan says logistics facilities typically require large sites, create fewer jobs per square foot and generate significant truck traffic. Economic Development staff instead wants to increase recruitment of advanced manufacturing, medical device, aerospace, drone and other industries that could create more higher-paying jobs.

Downtown is another major focus.

The plan calls for developing what staff describes as an “18-hour community,” with housing, businesses and entertainment generating activity from about 6 a.m. to midnight. Proposed strategies include promoting a mix of 70% market-rate and 30% affordable housing, recruiting a full-service supermarket, restaurants and breweries, developing a strategy for Weber Point and completing a Downtown Master Plan.

Staff also proposes redevelopment strategies for several city-owned downtown properties, including a three-acre site between Adventist Health Arena and Banner Island Ballpark, Historic City Hall at 425 N. El Dorado St. and the former Wells Fargo building at 303 N. El Dorado St., which the city purchased in 2024.

Outside downtown, the plan calls for recruiting a full-service supermarket to South Stockton and another along the Eight Mile Road corridor, attracting new commercial uses to the former Kmart site at 2180 E. Mariposa Road, near Farmington Road, and other property in South Stockton, and finding a replacement tenant for the former Sears at Weberstown Mall.

The document also identifies data centers, point-of-sale warehouses and big-box retailers as potential sources of new tax revenue. It names IKEA and Dave & Buster’s as examples of retailers not currently in the market and calls for pursuing annexation north of Eight Mile Road to support a future Costco and other commercial development.

The plan does not identify those companies as having committed to projects in Stockton.

Approving the plan would have no immediate fiscal impact, according to the staff report. The city had previously approved $150,000 to update its Economic Development Strategic Plan, but staff prepared the new action plan internally. That money would instead be used for business recruitment and marketing, including conferences aimed at attracting market-rate housing developers and industries such as medical devices and aerospace.