During their only meeting this month on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, the Los Banos City Council heard from the city’s largest developer and landowner, Greg Hostetler, owner of Stonefield Homes, who offered questions and critical comments about the use of new home impact fees for roads and parks, as well as personal comments about the mayor and one council member. That elicited responses from them and the city manager.
The council isn’t supposed to respond to general comments made during the Public Forum portion of the meeting except to possibly correct any incorrect information. But at the end of the meeting Mayor Paul Llanez, District 2 Councilman Doug Begonia and City Manager Josh Pinheiro did respond to the aforementioned questions and critical comments by Hostetler who also spoke about the mayor’s personal financial matters, as well as those of embattled District 3 Councilman Brett Jones who has posted comments critical of the developer’s projects on his Facebook page
Hostetler’s Hostile Harangue About Development Fees for Parks, Traffic Collected but Not Spent
During Hostetler’s comments (see 43:40 mark of council meeting video) he challenged two council members, the city manager and the mayor saying, “I am concerned about our city for a number of reasons. I don’t know where all the money’s gone. But as a builder I’ve paid over $100 million in fees to this city, and I don’t see the results of all those fees that the citizens actually paid in their home price. Alone, over $20 million has been paid in park fees. I’ve said that here, before. I asked, ‘where’s the money?’ But so far, I’ve heard promises and what I call political sound bites from staff and the council, ‘Oh, we’re gonna build parks. We went out to bid.’ But you’ve yet to buy the land over at Shaunessy Park. The land you own on for over four years, you now have plans for it, finally and maybe you’re going to bid on that. But it’s still not built. All the homes have been built.”
“That’s just part of what I’m concerned about,” he continued. “We talk about this Vineyard Drive. You, Brett Jones, lied. You didn’t do your homework and you’re financially incompetent. You have filed bankruptcy for $153,061.51. You dumped 131 creditors. But you lied about it. You said it was my fault out at Vineyard Drive.” The developer was referring to the yet to be built Vineyard Drive connection to State Route 165/N. Mercey Springs Road and the intersection about which the City held a Community Workshop for public input on August 1st.
“Well, I’ll tell you the facts are, tell me different,” Hostetler continued. “Those homes out there in north Los Banos paid over $4,000 a house in traffic fees and…all the fees have been collected from all those for over a decade. And it’s supposed to be, according to the development agreement I signed, and the City signed…that money was supposed to go into a separate account not comingled with any other funds the City has.”
Then getting animated he said, “We’ve asked in a Public Records Act request…over 15 days ago, you had 10 days to answer, and staff hasn’t been able to come up where the money is and they’ve asked for a 15-day extension, 25 days to look about where the money is in a separate, non-comingled account. I call that shady.”
“De Anza Way, the fact is, Begonia, that’s your district. You’ve never talked to me,” Hostetler said to the District 2 councilman also facing recall. “That subdivision has been filed for over four years. All the fees have been collected. Millions of dollars over there in traffic fees.”
He then directed his comments to City Manager Josh Pinheiro saying, “And you the city manager, the one-point-eight million, two-million-dollar city manager, you met with me, and I said ‘I’ll work with you to get it fixed.’” Then pounding his fist on the podium Hostetler exclaimed, “You said, ‘the City’s not going to spend one dime.’ You didn’t. You kept the $4 million. Where is it? Maybe it’s in your pocket. I’m just telling about the facts.”
Then turning to Llanez the developer said, “And you, Mayor, you run a city with a $100 million budget or more. But you bought a home in Dos Palos for $173,000, didn’t make the payments and lost it. You’re headed this city into trouble over here. You don’t know how to spend your money, and you say you have a $5 million company, which 40% is your share. So, why’d you lose your home of $173,000? One of the cheapest homes in Merced County. Doesn’t make sense.”
“And you don’t let us look at the budget,” Hostetler continued. Then pointing toward District 4 Councilwoman Deborah Lewis he said, “She can’t ask the, I’m sorry. Councilwoman Lewis can’t ask the finance director…about the budget. And the public has to go online and try to find it. Why can’t it have a public meeting like we used to have, when things weren’t shady, and go over the budget?”
“One of the other things I hear,” Hostetler said pointing at the Llanez. “If you get re-elected, and you guys don’t get re-called” pointing toward Jones and Begonia, “that you guys are going to give him (pointing toward Pinheiro) another million dollars for helping out in the election. That’s the rumor on the street. It may not be true. But it’s been said. Well, you gave him $1.8 million in taxpayer money without going to the insurance company and you may do the same thing. That’s not right.”
Then speaking of the improvements to Colorado Ballpark where the new splash pad is planned, the developer said, “Another thing…you’re going to maybe spend $6 million in a park by Colorado and the traffic can’t get in and out. And there’s an airport right there and a plane crash will kill how many people after you build a park that size with that many people. Wrong location. I’ll tell you that, right now. And you guys have talked about moving the airport and you haven’t got that done, either.”
“I think I’ve said enough, for now,” Hostetler concluded.
City Manager’s Report
Toward the end of the meeting during the City Manager’s Report (See 3:46:15 mark of council meeting video) Pinheiro said, “The City would like to get the Shaunessy (Village) Park resolved immediately. The ball’s been passed over to the developer to get back to us in regards to that park. We’ve actually been engaged with lawyers to get it addressed. Actually, Councilman Begonia talks to me about that, often and wants to take care of that for his district. The City has been trying to work on that for quite some time. We do want it done and we’re trying to go through the process to make that happen and we’re just waiting for a response on that.”
“In regards to the budget, we did have a workshop on the budget,” the city manager stated in response to Hostetler’s comments.
He then spoke of De Anza Way saying, “About a month or so ago, plus or minus, we actually went on over to Stockton and met with the developer to talk about fixing De Anza and trying to come up with a solution for that and we’ve yet to hear back. The City is actively working to get that done. We’d like to work with the developer to get that addressed.”
“Same thing on Vineyard. Vineyard’s been closed for 20-plus years,” Pinheiro stated. “There’s plus or minus 1,000 homes…about 1,100 homes. We’re actually trying to get things right-sized, corrected and collaborate with our partners so we can work together.”
Pinheiro then spoke of the improvements at the Animal Shelter saying, they“added 10 kennels. The internet was like dial-up. It’s much better out there.”
“This agenda we brought forth the Ag Sports Complex. Joe Heim shared his story. I find it quit impactful. Joe Heim came to us from Arizona. He’s originally from Oregon. He was in that parking lot and remembers looking at the Ag Sports Complex and thinking, ‘they’re working on it. But it’s in bad shape.’ That was six years ago.”
“I can’t say ‘thank you’ enough to staff…and council…to get this taken care of,” the city manager continued. “I must admit there’s been a lot of conversations about different parks. I’m really happy and proud of all the hard work by the team throughout the city…and mayor…and Councilman Lambert for pushing on this.”
“And how proud I am to be part of the hard work to make Los Banos a better place,” he added. “It’s quite historical of us to get so many projects done in such a period of time.”
Llanez, Begonia Respond to Public Comments, Lewis Publicly Shares City Employee’s Private Information
During Council Communications, Lewis shared concerns about city staff (see 4:02:27 mark of council meeting video) saying, “Our city has continued losing employees. We lost our Chief Brizzee over a year ago, our Fire Chief, our Public Works Director. We lost our Finance Director, Sonia. We also lost Kim Tomas to the County, who was our second in command and also the City Treasurer, and we’ve recently lost Jennifer who worked for the City probably starting around 2005.” But she didn’t mention that former employee’s title or position.
Brizee announced his retirement in August 2023.
“And I received a phone call Monday night informing me that Vanessa Portillo, our financial director is going to be leaving us, soon,” the District 4 Councilwoman stated. “I’m very concerned to want to know just how many more of our employees are we going to be losing. It’s been painful for me, and I know that it’s been painful for our staff. So, Vanesse, thank you for your time with the City.”
According to the mayor and Jones, the revelation of that personal personnel information by Lewis caused Portillo to get emotional after the meeting, as she had not yet made her resignation public.
When asked later about the matter, Llanez, Jones and Mayor Pro Tem and District 1 Councilman Kenneth Lambert said they were unaware of Portillo’s plans to resign. They were also unaware of a claim that the city manager yelled at the City’s finance director, tore up her letter of resignation and threw it back at her, telling her she couldn’t resign until after the election.
Jones said he was unaware of any resignation letter from Portillo to Pinheiro and doesn’t believe that claim. He said after Wednesday’s meeting that he saw Portillo break down and the city manager consoling her.
When asked about the two matters Lambert said he was also unaware of any resignation letter from Portillo, and he wanted to know how Lewis knew about it. “Who told her?” he asked. But he didn’t see what occurred after the meeting.
Asked about the claim and what occurred following the meeting Llanez said, “I’m not aware of anything like that. I can tell you Vanessa and Josh are friends. I didn’t know what was going on until I saw her crying and Josh consoling her.”
Asked if he’d heard about Pinheiro berating Lewis after the meeting, the mayor said, “I wasn’t there for that.”
“I got to tell you, that’s so disappointing to me someone would do that for whatever gain, at someone else’s expense,” Llanez added.
During his opportunity to speak at the meeting under Council Communications, Begonia said, “I’ve been out in my district…and people are happy we’re paving roads and trimming trees. Everyone’s happy about it. A new inclusive playground at College Greens Park. That park is always packed. It’s been awesome. New basketball courts at Meadowlands II Park. I’d like us to get moving with Shaunessy Park. The developer was here today and said it’s been ready for four years.”
Jones then said, “None of these have been listed in the newspaper. My first three years’ on here, it seemed so difficult to get things done. It was always, we don’t have the money. This was with government-raised city managers. They never thought outside the box.”
“With Josh on here…he just gets things done. That’s what we hired him to do. To get things done,” the District 3 councilman continued. “Item F on the Consent agenda…we’re getting three parking lots done.”
He also thanked Chief Reyna for the new police department graphics.
Llanez then addressed Hostetler’s comments saying, “There was a nice little script, here, tonight for the election. Mr. Hostetler mentioned my home in Dos Palos twenty years ago while I was a police officer, here. I took a 40% pay cut and three of my colleagues got laid off. I had to make a decision about losing my home. Our raise was way too big for what we’ve gotten. Nobody gets paid enough for some of the jobs they do. One of the things the public doesn’t know or understand when there are negotiations…when we go into Closed Session, we only give authority to the city manager. None of the city council members up here had an issue with the direction we gave to the city manager to enter negotiations.”
“Another thing, too, with Mr. Hostetler, he’s doing his homework,” the mayor continued. “I’d still like the opportunity to sit down and work some things out. I don’t believe Shaunessy Park is going to get done any time soon until he gets some things he wants.
When challenged about the comments by Pinheiro regarding the media covering city issues, Llanez, Lambert and Jones all said he was referring to the other news organization in Los Banos, not the Enterprise. The same applied to Jones’ comment, he said.
Next Council Meeting Nov. 6
The next council meeting will be held Wednesday, Nov. 6, the day after the election.
Shaunessy Village Park Landscape Improvement Plans. Source: City of Los Banos
Link- Contract-Document-Shaunessy-Village-Park-Final.pdf (losbanos.org)
