The Fox Guarding the Hen House

Nancy Young is a great representative as Tracy’s mayor, but everyone knows that Veronica Vargas is running City Hall. It’s not a knock against Mayor Young. She is a strong woman of faith and dignity, who believes in morals and ethics. But in politics those attributes don’t often translate into power. And this is exactly why Vargas with her broken moral compass runs City Hall and no one else.

With Rickman gone from Tracy City Council, Vargas is free to do as she please. She is outmaneuvering both Arriola and Young, the two veterans on council, on critical issues before the city. The placement of the Downtown TOD Specific Plan funding and authorization on the Consent Calendar is a perfect example. Vargas never blinked at the defeat of Measure Y. While it was a setback for her wealthy client Mike Sandhu’s UR1 plans, she always knew that the Specific Plan was going to get moved forward regardless if Measure Y won or failed. In short, she’s always a step ahead of everyone else on the dais.

Vargas has taken a page from perhaps California’s most notorious morally corrupt yet powerful politician, Willie Brown.

Brown built himself alliances, jumped on opportunities when he saw them, controlled the California legislature through his closed-door meetings and became fabulously wealthy while exercising unchecked and raw political power. It’s been said that Brown never went to a vote without knowing the outcome beforehand. 

Vargas worked hard to get Mary Mitracos appointed on city council in 2016. Read about the controversial appointment here. (It’s worth noting that realtor Mary Mitracos stands to benefit greatly from the Downtown TOD Specific Plan’s approval. She is also an ardent supporter of Vargas, acting as her Treasurer during Vargas’ campaign for Supervisor.) Now Mitracos and her husband Pete have been calling into council meetings voicing their support for the Downtown TOD plan and echoing the words of Vargas. Vargas and Pete are also colluding together to take millions of Measure V dollars, money intended to build baseball fields, gyms, and swim centers for our children, to fund their Nature Park. More on that later.

Vargas was also key in getting Jenny Haruyama hired as City Manager. For those of you who don’t know, Haruyama replaced then City Manager Troy Brown. Haruyama had earlier been involved in conspiring to get a city manager fired. Read more about it here. While the firing of Brown was controversial and opposed by many, Haruyama’s hiring was fast but less than clean.

According to sources in the city, Vargas and Haruyama had several closed-door meetings throughout Harayuma’s interview process. 

When city council is interviewing people for City Manager, they are ethically obligated to not meet with candidates, as it could be perceived those candidates obtain unfair insights and advantages. Whether Vargas improperly coached Haruyama or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that Vargas’ actions were unethical. She saw an opportunity to make Haruyama’s beholden to her and she seized that opportunity. And by all accounts, Vargas does have Haruyama’s trust and support. All one has to do is look at the City Manager’s support of the funding and inclusion of Mike Sandhu’s (one of Tracy’s wealthiest private developers) properties in the Downtown TOD Specific Plan and the now Tracy Gateway.

In short, Haruyama is doing Vargas’ bidding and Tracy taxpayers are paying the price for it - literally.

It’s without question that Veronica Vargas has higher political aspirations. She is termed out in 2022, so she needs accomplishments that she can point to in the future. Those two projects are the Downtown TOD and Tracy Gateway. Both help her politically and both help her client, Mike Sandhu, who happens to be one of Tracy’s wealthiest residents. Right now, no one on council seems willing and able to stop Vargas.

There are no alliances on the Tracy City Council which works to Vargas’ benefit. Mayor Young is not an ally of Vargas’, in fact the two have been on opposing sides for years on many critical matters, but she has not taken control over the council. But Vargas has the city manager’s ear and Young does not.

Arriola has the skill set to address Vargas’ ethical excesses but inexplicably takes on a Sargent Schultz “I see nothing” attitude. Davis and Bedolla are new and finding their own footing.  The more experienced Vargas mistreats Davis and Bedolla while each of them genuinely work to learn the city council ropes.

The question is when will the other four city council members wake-up to stop Vargas’ agenda? If not, then get ready for Tracy to become the East Bay’s biggest bedroom community!