Campaign of “Positive Leadership” focused on accountability & transparency, public safety, homelessness, transportation and community improvements including new city pool; will work with developers to get more amenities
“I think Los Banos needs a fresh start. We need to calm things down and get things moving in the right way. Once you lose the trust, then everything becomes suspect.” – Mike Amabile.
It’s been 12 years since he last served as Mayor of Los Banos, but with the message of “Positive Leadership” and offering “A Balanced, Sustainable Approach,” local restaurateur, Los Banos native and lifelong resident Mike Amabile has decided to return and run again for the seat he once held. The city’s former six-time mayor – the longest-serving in the city’s history since it was incorporated in 1907 – was first elected to lead Los Banos in 1994 and continued to be re-elected serving until 2006 when he chose to not run again.
Using the theme of “Positive Leadership” his 2024 campaign platform covers six areas: Build a responsive, transparent city government; zero tolerance on crime; create safe neighborhoods; support schools and arts; and create and retain jobs.
The co-owner of Españas Southwest Bar and Grill located on Pacheco Blvd./Hwy 152, the busiest street in Los Banos, on the historic property once occupied by the community’s Founder, Cattle King of California Henry Miller, the former mayor who hopes to again have the title shared about his background in public service, offered a list of accomplishments and provided what he plans to do if elected, again.
Public Service & Accomplishments
Amabile was appointed to the Los Banos Airport Commission in 1993 where he served for a year and was also president of the Los Banos Chamber of Commerce at that time. He then decided to run for the elected position of the city’s mayor.
Asked why, Amabile said, “The intersection of 165 and 152 was a mess, only two lanes in each direction. The railroad was backing things up twice a day. I was going down to city hall complaining, asking ‘what are you doing about the intersection?’ So, I went to a council meeting, and I was told by city staff they called CalTrans every week about that. About a week later I called my Supervisor Jerry O’Banion, asking him who to call at CalTrans, which he told me, and I did. I spoke to the director who said, ‘I haven’t heard from Los Banos,’ and he’d been there for a year. So, that’s why I ran for mayor and that’s the first thing I got fixed.”
“It took a year with several grants. But it’s what you see when you drive by there, today,” he added.
“I got re-elected six times for 12 years total, I ended my last term in 2006 and decided to not run for re-election,” Amabile continued. “Then about 10 years ago I decided to run again because I felt there were a lot of things not being done for the community, like swimming pools and amenities, expansion of parks. So, I ran against the incumbent mayor, then as the outsider. But it was an off-year election, and I lost by something like 120 votes with about an 18% turnout.”
Issues, Plans if Elected Include City Pool Which Was Previously Funded
Asked why he’s running for mayor this time he responded, “I think Los Banos needs a fresh start. We need to calm things down and get things moving in the right way.”
“Number one is safety, to me. If you don’t feel safe going to the store then nothing else matters in your community,” shared Amabile, as one of his rules of thumb for governing the city.
“A lot of the things they’re talking about is maintenance. We need to build new,” he stated “They have done some things for which I’ll give them credit, the Animal Shelter and the Colorado Ballpark. But Los Banos still doesn’t have a pool.”
“My last year in 2006 we funded the new community center and the new police station which took 17 years to be built. It just opened last year. We also funded a pool,” Amabile stated. “The plan was around 2009 or 2010 they would start construction on the Community Center, then two years later a boys’ and girls’ gym and pool a little bit further east. Then the new council diverted the funds and spent it all on the Community Center and put the gym there.
Asked what is the main issue that motivated him to come back he said, “My biggest problem is you have to communicate. For a city council to be trusted by the public…I know you can’t talk about personnel matters, performance. But you can talk about settlements. They had two insurance companies’ lawyers who rejected that settlement. It’s probably because there wasn’t a lawsuit filed. There are certain steps you must follow. That’s the way you do it. To drop a step, explain it to us. I don’t know what that explanation would do.”
“Once you lose the trust, then everything becomes suspect,” he added.
Asked if people encouraged him to run Amabile said, “Oh, yeah. I had over 100 phone calls and people coming in to see me. I get a lot of that every election. People felt I’m honest. I’m upfront. If I make a decision, I will tell you why I made that decision and explain it and you will know why I made that decision. And that keeps the trust between the council and the community. Then if they don’t want to vote for me, then that’s fine because they didn’t like my decision.”
“I enjoy finding answers to problems,” he stated. “I think I’m pretty level-headed, I can build consensus and bring people along the journey. I’m open to new ideas. I love learning from people.”
Amabile shared about the recent action by the city council saying, “The $12 million they’re going to spend on the Colorado Ballpark. I would have had at least three community meetings on that. Tell me what you need and how you want us to spend the money. Tell us your priorities. We know the inside and out and can figure out what’s doable.”
“I don’t think they had any community meetings. They might have talked about it at city council meetings,” he added. “We used to have meetings once a year in the neighborhood.”
“Everybody is so busy, you have to go to them,” Amabile stated and shared how he used to gather public input. “So, I would have Park Chats. I would put up a sign in a park and say the mayor is going to be here for two hours on Saturday morning and I would have a staff member there who would write down everything that was said. Then I would report that at the next council meeting. If I’m elected, I will do that, again. It was very successful, and we learned a lot. It was probably where I got the most information.”
Wants City Pool, Different Location for Pickleball Courts
Amabile wants to bring back the city pool saying, “I had a pool when I grew up in this town. The kids today should have one. I’m for pickleball courts, too. I don’t agree with where they’re located at. If construction doesn’t start until next year, I think they need to be closer to town. They’re at the Sports Ag Complex and it’s so windy out there. I’d go to softball games out there and the softball would just turn in the wind,” he shared with a chuckle. “It included ballfields and the dog park. It’s mostly baseball stuff. What you see around town is a lot of basketball, baseball and soccer, which is great.”
He then spoke of the soccer fields on the west side of town saying, “We built a beautiful field out on Ortigalita Road,” at Oliveira Park.
Proposes Growth Management System Limiting Number of Units Per Year
Asked about his plans to address residential growth Amabile said, “You have to make deals with the developers, and I did that in the past. I will layer a growth management system, like I had in place in the early 2000’s, which limits how much they can build a year, even if it’s zoned. They’ll sign off on it. That’s so our infrastructure can keep up with the growth, including police hiring, fire services.”
“If we’re going to have homes, there needs to be a benefit for existing residents,” he stated as another of his rules of thumb for serving on the council.
“We had Richard Menezes, a landowner who got the Food4Less Shopping Center built,” the candidate for mayor shared. “Then I told him we needed a high school site and we got him to donate the land for the Pacheco High School.”
“Larry Anderson came to us and wanted to build on the west side of town, and I asked him for a shopping center and 120 acres for Merced College. He donated that land and that’s where you see the college, today,” Amabile explained. “And we have the Target center on Pacheco Blvd. and Ortigalita.”
“I met with all the developers and the statutory fee for schools required by the state was being paid. But it wasn’t enough money for our district to build any schools,” he continued. “I told the developers, they’re impacting our schools, we needed to get it fixed and I negotiated a fee four times greater. That’s still in place, today.”
“I won a Gold CTA Award for K-12 for helping a school district with fees at that time,” the former mayor added.
“We need workforce housing, condominiums, apartments. We’ve built a lot of low-income housing,” he stated and then shared an idea for market-rate affordable housing. “You get to a corner house and it’s a duplex. The front door to one is on one street and the other front door is on the other street. It’s a lower cost, owner occupied or rental and you can’t even tell it’s a duplex.”
Transportation
Regarding transportation improvements Amabile said, “The city has a developer fee for road improvements. Most of it goes to major thoroughfares. Pioneer Road needs to be widened on the south side of town and moved away from the existing houses.”
Asked about the proposed bypass north of the city he shared, “A bypass was proposed by CalTrans way back in the 60’s and they still own the land for the offramps on each end. I had worked on the bypass, and we planned it to go north after like 1,000 meetings with the public. I got it engineered by CalTrans and I got the environmental done. They said if we get all that done and purchase the right-of-way, the clock starts ticking and CalTrans will build the road once traffic starts getting to a Level D (on Pacheco Blvd.).”
“In 2006 we had set aside $16 million to buy the northern right-of-way for the bypass then we would just sit and wait,” Amabile explained. “We are at a C and D levels, right now. When we become an F, traffic on the highway stops commerce. But then they will build the bypass and bring Pacheco Blvd. back down to Level C.” At least, that was the plan.
“I left office and without me being there fighting the fight, that money was moved to the Campus Parkway in Merced to serve the U.C.,” he shared. “So, we lost our acquisition money and CalTrans loved that because now, they’re not required to build the bypass. Now, 18 years later the environmental is no longer valid and CalTrans will probably not OK it. The engineering will probably still be good. They didn’t want to build it. It was like $200 million. They were spending $200 million on a cloverleaf in L.A.”
“So, that northern one is dead. It would be impossible unless the governor came down here,” Amabile added.
“We have to build a local bypass, which is planned for Pioneer Road. It has been planned and they’ve had meetings on it. But it’s been dead in the water for about two years and I don’t know why,” he continued. “We would build it from Ward all the way to Volta Road.
“We did the half-cent sales tax in the early 2000’s to fund the new police station and paid for police and fire employees,” Amabile also shared.
Homelessness
“I want to deal with the homeless situation. I think it’s a very urgent matter,” Amabile said. “The first two things – no public camping and no drop offs by other agencies. I have witnesses that at least three months ago said there were buses with at least 15 people in them dropping off homeless at F and 2nd Streets. So, we’ve got to stop that and let everyone around us know. We’re not going to arrest the homeless people. We’re going to arrest the bus drivers and impound the bus.”
“We’ll do all of this with compassion,” he added.
New Pool, Community Amenities
Amabile proposed a “partnership with the schools to share facilities.” Asked about allowing resident to use the high school pools he said, “those are competition pools.” About the former city pool Amabile shared, “It was over there at the new (recently improved) Loftin Stadium. The pool was jointly owned, and they stopped using it and it deteriorated too much to fix.”
Asked where he plans for the new pool to be located Amabile said, “On the railroad corridor near the community center. We found an 1890 law that said if the railroad abandons land we could buy it and we got it for super cheap. We built a loading dock for the railroad which they still wanted in case they needed it. That property is where the police station is now.”
Plans for Other Rail Right-of-Way Property
Asked what he planned to do with the other land in the rail right-of-way the former mayor said, “I had it zoned for some apartments to populate the downtown area with people so they can walk to the shops. We have a lot of offices, now which there’s nothing wrong with that. But we need more shops and restaurants that will be open at night.”
“Downtown is the living room of your community,” he added as another one of his guidelines for serving on the council.
Job Creation and Attraction
Amabile was then asked what his plans are to attract businesses and jobs to Los Banos. He said, “We have to go to the high-growth industries, whatever that may be. We need to go out and find industries. I used to go to Silicon Valley businesses. I met with IBM and told the guy he had 41 employees working for him that live in Los Banos and that his head software engineer lived in Los Banos and he didn’t even know that.”
“It’s cheaper to build in Los Banos,” Amabile added. “It’s a multi-faceted effort. You have to bring in the businesses, line up the land, then they build and locate here.”
“Retail has come. Now we need the high-paying jobs, and we have to be active to go get them,” he stated.
Other Accomplishments
Amabile’s campaign also shared that while mayor, more than 14 parks were developed including Henry Miller Plaza and multiple walking and jogging paths. Also, under his leadership the City’s full-time fire department was established.
Other Public & Community Service
Amabile currently serves as the president of the West Side Community Foundation.
“We basically fund mostly education and arts for children and adults for Los Banos, Dos Palos and Gustine,” he shared.
He was also appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger to the San Joaquin Valley Economic Board. See the “More About Mike” page of his campaign website.
Other Honors & Awards
Amabile was recognized seven times as the Most Honest or the Most Effective Public Official by the Los Banos Enterprise Reader’s Choice Awards and was honored with the American Hometown Leadership Award from the National Center, Washington D.C. See the complete list on his campaign website.
Education, Personal Life – Family Has History of Public Service
Amabile earned an AA from Merced College and a BA from Fresno State. While attending there, it was the only time in his life he didn’t live in Los Banos.
Amabile isn’t the only former mayor in his family. “My father (John A. Amabile, Jr.) was mayor in 1967-68 and on the council for 18 years,” he shared. “Back then it was an appointed mayor. My great uncle, Robert Puccinelli was mayor and my uncle on my mother’s side, her brother, Arthur Selland was mayor of Fresno.” (See list of all Los Banos mayors since 1908)
Amabile also shared that the restaurant has been a family-owned business since 1967 and that his brother and sister are his partners.
Asked about the origin of their last name the candidate said he and his siblings are half Italian and half Norwegian on his mother’s side, his last name is Italian,and it is actually pronounced “ah-MA-be-lay”.
“But people pronounce it AM-uh-beel,” he said, and that’s fine with him.
Amabile is married to Michelle, and they have two children but no grandchildren, yet.
Summing up the reason for running again he said, “I think what it boils down to is, I feel I could get more things done, because I will have a council working together to move Los Banos forward. I will meet with whomever at the state level, at the county level and in the private sector. I’m all about getting everyone together and moving forward together.”
The candidate for mayor is self-funding his campaign, not taking any contributions from anyone and has spent about $25,000 so far. He makes himself accessible by providing both his email and cell phone number on the campaign website and he wants to hear from the public by providing a survey.
Amabile is seeking to unseat first-term incumbent Paul Llanez and former District 2 Councilman Refugio LLamas.
To learn more information about Amabile and his campaign, email him at [email protected], call (209) 752-7230 or visit LB-Mayor.org. To take the survey click the “More” drop down button on the top right side of the website.
The election is November 5th and the top vote-getter will serve as the City’s next mayor for a two-year term.
