Stockton councilmember Michele Padilla steps in it again

The flip side of corruption is incompetence. Exhibit A:  Councilwoman Michele Padilla.

Padilla was not recruited as a candidate by the 209 Times backroom politics gang for her qualifications. She was picked because District 1 incumbent Sol Jobrack refused to do the bidding of Times founder Motecuzoma Sanchez. Sanchez reportedly wanted Jobrack to vote to fire honest, competent City Manager Harry Black.  

Why fire Black, you ask? No legit reason.

“Black did not cater to Motec,” said Xochitl Paderes, Sanchez’ former right-hand person. “That started his vendetta.” 

Sanchez, a bitter also-ran repeatedly rejected by voters, acts as if he believes that he deserves to rule Stockton with the power and prestige of a top city official. Much of what ails Stockton politics stems from this delusion.

In this case, an honest councilman who did his homework was smeared out of office — the 209 Times alleged without evidence that Jobrack muscled developers for money — and Stockton got Michele Padilla.

Padilla is in the news again because she used tax dollars to throw an event that included campaign remarks by political candidates. That’s against the municipal code.  

As well it should be. Your tax dollars should not be used to boost anyone’s campaign. If you want to donate, fine. But nobody authorized Padilla to donate for you.

It’s questionable whether Stockton City Council members should even have a “discretionary fund,” which is what Padilla used on July 20 when she spent over $10,000 on a cookout featuring free food and prizes at Michael Faklis Park.

Each council member gets a discretionary fund of $15,000 (the mayor $60,000) to spend as they choose. But there are no-nos, and one is the money cannot be spent on politics.

Padilla invited city council candidates Jason Lee and Mario Enriquez, mayoral candidate Christina Fugazi, and San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors candidate Mario Gardea, to take the stage. Almost all their remarks were political. 

My favorite: “I know each and every one of us are tired of the status quo, and electing the same old, same old people who have no idea what they’re doing,” said Enriquez, which was ironic under the circumstances.

Enriquez later apologized on his Instagram for the lapse. 

Padilla refused. She huffed she “can emphatically state that there was no violation … Every expenditure of public funds for this event was reviewed by legal counsel from the city and approved.” 

Liar, liar, pants on fire. 

On her discretionary funds application, Padilla described the event as a kumbaya exercise in neighborhood bonding. She said nothing about campaigning candidates. Had she, the City Attorney’s Office never would have okayed the expenditure, said city spokesperson Connie Cochran.

The outlay would have been iffy even without the violation, in my opinion. Blowing two-thirds of your discretionary funds on a weenie roast for a small crowd in a district of 15,000 people? Questionable judgment.

But beside the point. Violating the discretionary fund policy is punishable by a menu of penalties: loss of reimbursement; mandatory restitution to the city; having the money reported to state and federal tax authorities as income; civil penalties of $1,000 a day and three times the value of the money spent; or criminal prosecution. 

Which sanction, if any, is determined by the council in public session.

Well, the council does not meet again until Aug. 20. Whether it will discipline Padilla is unknown.

Given that Padilla is a serial offender, I hope they do. Let’s review. 

After riding into office on a wave of slime, Padilla tearfully thanked her campaign manager Sam Fant, gushing he was now her “lifelong friend.” Fant pleaded no contest to conspiracy and election fraud charges in 2017. Councilman Brando Villapudua alleged Fant offered him a bribe. The district attorney declined to file charges. 

Padilla also thanked her “management team” of Sanchez and Frank Gayaldo. Gayaldo being co-equal with Sanchez as a 209 Times’ smear artist. 

Padilla then kicked off her council tenure by skipping part of council orientation. She just didn’t show up. 

“At that time I was not sworn in as a council member,” Padilla said in response to an emailed question.

Neither were Counlcil members-elect Michael Blower or Brando Villapudua, but they showed up.

Padilla implied she had to work. “I am a full time teacher, city council is part time.” And she did attend a second orientation given by the League of California Cities. That included a class on government ethics. That makes Padilla’s ethical lapses hard to understand.  Unless you believe, as I do, that ethics are irrelevant to the people who recruited her. The people determined to gain majorities on local government boards using whatever pawns at hand. 

Padilla’s first ethical “tell” involved the annual disbursal of funds to youth programs. Mayor Kevin Lincoln stubbornly insisted that an out-of-town internet celebrity, Jason Lee, be given $2 million of tax dollars (later cut to $1 million) for Lee’s nebulous youth program I Am Ready. 

Never mind the vetting process that ensures public funds go to responsible, qualified bidders; to hell with all that good-government stuff, Lincoln insisted; give Jason Lee the money.

Lincoln, a nothingburger also brought to you by the 209 Times, is Exhibit B that the flip side of corruption is incompetence. Political incompetence in his case. Smelling a rat, a council majority defied Lincoln and steered Lee’s program to the standard screening process. 

Where it flunked. I Am Ready was denied funding. That’s how an honest system works.

But before the vote one council member indicated her willingness to join Lincoln and just hand Lee the money — safeguards be damned — Councilwoman Michele Padilla. 

Jason Lee is running for the Council, by the way, against District 6 Vice Mayor Kimberly Warmsley. He was, you’ll recall, one of the candidates to take the stage at Padilla’s event.

Another controversy erupted in March of 2023. Lincoln, determined to fire Harry Black — probably urged on by Sanchez — went into closed session with the rest of the council and argued that Black should be fired. 

A council majority disagreed. The vote stalled at 4-3 to keep Black. Councilman Villapudua got a text message. It was from Sanchez, urging Villapudua to change his vote. Someone had violated the closed meeting law and alerted Sanchez.

Who? The city hired outside investigators who charged the city $44,000 but failed to identify the culprit. Given what you know about ethics-challenged council members, who do you suspect?

“The Council has received training regarding the Brown Act,” the San Joaquin County Civil Grand Jury wrote in a June report, “but some members have demonstrated open disregard for that training.”

Besides violating the Brown Act, the leak shattered the trust council members must have in each other so that closed-session discussions can be candid and thorough and lead to well-reasoned decisions. In other words, the underhanded politicking by the 209 Times’ and its funky council allies undermines city government. 

The Grand Jury report said as much. It clearly implies that Padilla and Lincoln are complicit.

“Members of the Stockton City Council have enabled this SMP (social media platform) to continue a campaign of harassment through their continued association with and appointment of their associates to City Boards and Commissions,” the report says.

Lookin’ at you, Michele Padilla.

In October of 2023 Padilla released a letter saying City Manager Black had been verbally abusive and she would no longer “engage in private meetings” with him. Fair enough; but the letter was written on city letterhead. That, too, is a no-no.

Padilla argued that the muni code did not specifically prohibit using city letterhead. But the prohibition is both a municipal industry standard and common sense. Using city letterhead makes one person’s stance appear to be the council’s official position. Which it was not.

Subsequently, the Council had to divert energy to updating the city’s ethics policies. Good thing there are no pressing issues in Stockton.

Interviewed for a Stocktonia story about those ethics policies, Padilla offered this statement, among others: “No loans or money has or was exchanged between myself and Tecuani Consulting,” Sanchez’ political consultancy.

But it says right on Padilla’s Form 460, the forms on which she discloses all her campaign’s receipts and expenditures, that she owes Tecuani $8,000. I asked her to explain, but she merely repeated her statement: “There was no loan or financial transactions between myself, and Tecuani LLC, and or Montezuma (sic) Sanchez.”

No subsequent 460s show that she repaid Sanchez … in money, at least. She nominated Sanchez to a couple committees, including the Planning Commission, an important job. A clear quid pro quo. Sanchez’ nomination died for lack of a second. 

More work for the ethics department! A council committee is also looking at San Francisco’s policies, which require campaign consultants to register with an ethics commission and report gifts to officials, to list clients, to report donations to candidates and any city contracts or appointments to office.

Padilla opposes this transparency. “In my opinion, consultants will no longer want to do business with campaigns if they are required to report and disclose information,” she wrote.

The dishonest ones won’t. That’s sort of the point.

In June, Padilla filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission and police alleging that her former campaign treasurer, the above-quoted Xochitl Paderes, embezzled money from her war chest. Paderes says Padilla and Sanchez ripped her off. The jury’s out. 

But Padilla’s own 460s raise questions about her allegations. 

The early 460s are signed by Paderes when she was treasurer. The later ones, presumably filed after the two women parted ways, are signed by Padilla — all under penalty of perjury. 

The thing is, with few exceptions, the dollar figures in the reports are roughly the same. Meaning that Padilla appears to have tacitly rubber-stamped Paderes’ earlier accounting.

Now, guess what three individuals are listed as Padilla’s witnesses in the FPPC complaint: Motecuzoma Sanchez, Sam Fant, and Frank Gayaldo. It wouldn’t surprise me if one of them wrote the complaint. It would also not surprise me if they were too caught up in their dirty tricks to grasp the implications of Padilla’s campaign finance documents. 

A key component of political leadership is the moral compass required to understand and respect the principles behind laws regulating democratic government and campaigns. Padilla lacks this compass. Perhaps that’s why she was chosen.

Michael Fitzgerald’s column runs on Wednesdays. On Twitter and Instagram as Stocktonopolis. Email:mfitzgeraldstockton@