As a City Councilman for the past three years, Tony Bruscia has
experienced the highs and lows of local government and being in the
public spotlight. On Dec. 1, he succeeded Councilman Brian Conroy
and was sworn in as the mayor of Hollister.
As a City Councilman for the past three years, Tony Bruscia has experienced the highs and lows of local government and being in the public spotlight. On Dec. 1, he succeeded Councilman Brian Conroy and was sworn in as the mayor of Hollister.
Free Lance: How can a Hollister mayor improve the city?
Tony Bruscia: One of the things I’m going to try to do a good job of is to represent the city well. I think that while we have a lot of difficulties and a lot of challenges, there are also a lot of good things in our city. And I don’t think our city has always done a good job of communicating that and representing that.
I think the mayor, in effect, is the spokesperson and representative of the city. It’s my job to represent all of what the city is – the good and the bad – and communicate with people and encourage involvement from the community in their government.
FL: How confident are you in this year’s major hires – City Manager Dale Shaddox and Police Chief Jeff Miller?
TB: On a personal note, both of them are really nice gentlemen. Both of them are good men.
Professionally speaking, I was really happy to see the rank and file, the whole group of officers, support Jeff Miller’s hiring. I think it’s been good for morale. I think he’s dedicated and committed to doing a good job. And I’m very hopeful we can look back two or three years from now and say, “Wow, that was a good choice.”
With Dale, I have more opportunity to work with him and see more of what he’s doing. We’re lucky to have him. He is very sharp. He’s sincere. He has integrity. I trust him. He’s competent.
And we’ve brought him into an incredibly difficult situation – I don’t envy him having his job right now. He’s been the bearer of bad news. He’s uncovered a lot of things. He’s discovered a lot of things. And that’s a tough thing to have to do consistently in a job.
FL: With the General Fund reserve dropping by $6 million in four years, is the Council innocent?
TB: Absolutely not. But one of the things important to point out – that money that was spent was well spent. I don’t think there’s an issue of guilt or innocence in terms of spending down the reserves because we have more reserves than we need. Frankly, from a financial standpoint of making sure we’re OK, we need to have about four-and-a-half million (the city maintains about $9 million).
Would I say, “Shame on the Council for spending down money?” Absolutely not. But could we have paid closer attention and given more scrutiny to what was going on? Yes, we could have.
Frankly, if there’s one criticism I would give to myself, from the time I’ve gotten into office until today, I really tried hard to not over-manage, to not micro-manage, and to let staff do their jobs and to worry about big picture goals and plans and ideas. And I really wish I would have paid a little closer attention to what was being done and not being done, and how and why. And I think all of us as a Council could have done a better job of that.
FL: How can the Council address the need to cut employee positions, while maintaining somewhat adequate service levels?
TB: How? Well, I guess there are a couple of things. One of the things we’re trying to get clear, and it’s a moving target – what is our situation financially? How much money is the state going to take away from us?
It’s crucial for us to figure out, how can we be financially responsible and try to make sure we’re providing at least the minimum required services to the community? I hope we can continue to provide most of the services people are getting now. And I really hope we can work as a team, all of us on the Council and all of the employees in all of the different departments. I sincerely hope we can work together to try and get through this challenge.
If we choose to protect our own turfs and not work cooperatively together and just kind of fight amongst ourselves, then unfortunately the public will suffer. I sincerely hope with all of my heart that we can work together.
FL: Where do you stand on growth?
TB: I think, unfortunately, we allowed growth to occur in this community without paying its fair share of the burden. We allowed builders to come in and build their projects without having them cough up the dollars we need to pay for all the services. And it’s a shame.
What that’s done is create an atmosphere where people don’t want growth. No growth is unhealthy. No growth hurts our community and hurts all of us here.
What I really hope we can do is to figure out how we can grow in a way that most of the community can live with and feel good about. And finally, to grow in areas that will benefit the community – things like businesses and jobs, retail shops, tourism, really important areas.
I also would like to see us focus more on filling in what we have and making better use of what’s here, instead of paving over more farmland.
FL: You recently changed your mind and you’re not running for the Board of Supervisors. What are your political goals?
TB: First I’ll address the changing of my mind. On one hand, I felt like I could make a good impact on the community by being on the Board. And on the other hand, I feel like I would be giving up so much with the League of (California) Cities and the Council.
The League of Cities, I’ve had a tremendous opportunity, and it continues to grow – my opportunity to make things happen and to affect change, and it’s exciting. I’ve built up trust and relationships within the League of Cities, and credibility, and it’s gotten me the opportunity to do a lot of good things. And to walk away from that at this point, it’s just hard to do.
The other part of it is, we have some really difficult challenges, and the challenges have become greater than what we thought they were two years ago, and what we thought they were two months ago. And I really feel like I’d like to stay on long enough to see us get over the hump and get in the right direction. I don’t think we’ll be there by next November. By two to three years, we will have things going in the right direction.
I don’t want to jump ship just because things are bad, and things are getting bad, and I want to get it right before I leave.
FL: What’s the funniest thing you’ve seen or heard at a public meeting?
TB: Eva Reyna in her hospital bed asking for an apology. She asked Paul Grannis to come to the Council meeting to let me know she’s still waiting for an apology.
