The Stockton City Council unanimously approved its response Tuesday to a civil grand jury report on council dysfunction after receiving a deadline extension, committing to reforms that will require further votes and public scrutiny through 2028.
The city now has until Friday to submit its response. A letter from supervising Judge George J. Abdallah Jr. granting the extension is dated Sept. 16 — a week before the original deadline — but bears a Tuesday receipt stamp from the city attorney’s office.
Interim City Attorney Donald Larkin provided the letter with a Tuesday memorandum, saying he received it after publication of the meeting agenda.
The vote approved the city’s formal answer to the San Joaquin County Civil Grand Jury’s “Governance in Turmoil” report. But the 36-page document leaves substantial decisions ahead: who will investigate ethics complaints, how campaign contributions will be restricted and how councilmembers will be held to rules governing their conduct.
Mayor Christina Fugazi said the responsibility for following through belongs to the elected officials.
“It’s not staff that’s going to be held accountable for it. It’s going to be us,” Fugazi said.
The response agrees in part with all nine findings in the grand jury’s June 25 report, which examined council conflict, interference with employees, fiscal practices, ethics and transparency.
It accepts the eight recommendations while disputing some of the report’s characterizations and conclusions.
The council acknowledges that public disputes can undermine confidence in government but argues that disagreement among elected officials does not itself establish a governance failure. They also accept the need to protect staff from improper interference while maintaining that interactions with employees must be evaluated individually.
David Sengthay, president of Stockton Democrats Together, challenged that approach during public comment.
“I think several of the disagreements in the report, excuse me, in the draft response were about things that the grand jury never said,” Sengthay said. “It never said that a four-three vote was improper. It pointed to the conduct surrounding those votes.”
The city’s proposed “Governance Reset” calls for council training, expanded ethics rules and written social media guidelines by the end of this year. A local campaign-contribution ordinance is due by Dec. 31, 2027, with an operational ethics commission or comparable accountability body targeted for January 2028.
Those proposals will return through a series of council actions. Some changes can be handled administratively; others require policies, ordinances, funding or potentially voter approval of a City Charter amendment.
City Manager Johnny Ford said staff deliberately left some proposals broad so councilmembers could shape them.
“The hard work is really going to start,” Ford said. “This is where you get intimately involved in shaping what we’ve sort of put together for you to react to.”
Vice Mayor Jason Lee said he had requested the grand jury investigation after taking office and identifying “fundamental flaws” in the organization.
“The internal controls of this organization were broken,” Lee said.
He said he could not discuss details of his testimony or the circumstances behind his request. But he criticized the council’s limited involvement in developing the response and said a special meeting would have allowed more discussion among councilmembers and the public.
Ford said staff could explore an October workshop.
Some of the work is already underway. The council’s Legislation and Environmental Committee recently folded draft proposals for an ethics commission and mandatory political consultant registration into the broader review of grand jury recommendations. Neither proposal received final approval.
The commission draft would create a five-member body to review complaints involving elected officials, candidates, commissioners and senior city officials. An independent evaluator would investigate complaints, and the commission could impose administrative penalties.
Its proposed appointment process would divide selections among the city attorney, city manager, city clerk, city auditor and City Council — placing appointment authority with offices whose conduct could fall under the commission’s oversight.
Resident Mary Elizabeth raised that concern again Tuesday, warning that the arrangement had the potential for cronyism. Sengthay urged independent appointments, a dedicated budget and enforcement authority.
The city promises a public ethics commission framework by Dec. 31, but its structure and powers remain subject to further decisions.
Other changes begin immediately. Tuesday’s approval directs councilmembers to follow an interim standard against personal attacks and disparaging or demeaning statements about colleagues or employees when communicating officially or discussing city business.
The response preserves protections for good-faith policy criticism, disagreement and lawful reporting of suspected wrongdoing. Permanent written guidelines are due by year’s end.
Lee questioned how the city would draw that distinction.
“I think we have to, as a council, define what’s personal because different people up here are going to receive things differently,” he said.
He also asked whether future campaign finance rules would prevent councilmembers from contributing to one another’s campaigns, noting that he had donated thousands of dollars to colleagues’ campaigns.
Lee gave $6,500 to then-mayoral candidate Christina Fugazi, $5,500 to Mariela Ponce and $5,000 to Mario Enríquez during the 2024 campaign. All three now serve alongside him.
This year, he donated $5,000 to Tamica Small, a challenger to Councilmember Michele Padilla.
Larkin said Stockton currently follows state campaign-finance law. Additional local restrictions would require further council consideration.
The response leaves decisions about contribution limits, campaign committee transfers, disclosure and enforcement for that process. Sengthay urged adoption early enough for the rules to govern the 2028 election.
Councilmember Michael Blower asked how the council would know whether the commitments were on track. Ford said staff hoped to bring an update back no later than the council’s first December meeting.
The response establishes an initial 200-day schedule covering conduct standards, complaint procedures, investigation spending controls and procurement and grant transparency. Unfinished reforms must be reported at least quarterly until completed or formally closed, with delays accompanied by an explanation, revised date and next required action.
The public tracking system will also include unresolved recommendations from earlier grand juries. That commitment follows the latest grand jury’s finding that Stockton’s September 2025 response adequately addressed only three of six outstanding recommendations.
Fugazi said residents should be able to follow the work online even if they miss council meetings.
“The public is looking at us to make sure that we have heard … the findings of the report, that we have a recommendation here, and that we’re going to follow through with it,” she said.