Galt Mayor Randy Shelton aims to listen to needs of community

Galt Mayor Randy Shelton, 60, was elected to the council this fall after having served in 2002 and losing his re-election bid in 2006. Some of his priorities for the next year include making the public feel welcome to express their opinions at the Galt City Council meeting and the budget.

Shelton, who is also a Galt Fire Marshal, sat down with reporter Maggie Creamer and showed her a binder with a personal statement of what he wants to do on the City Council. The writing on the binder included, "As a City Council member, I will provide leadership and respect the opinion of all those I serve."

Q: What are your main priorities?

A: One of my first goals is that we, as council, respect not only each other, but those in the community as a whole. Allowing people to know it's OK to disagree with me. You have five minutes, and the council needs to be respectful to those at the podium. It will instantly not create a confrontation. And most importantly, that open line of communication will benefit the community. We all have differences of opinion, but let's be respectful of each other.

Personally, I will continue to offer up allowing people to meet with myself and appropriate staff, so we can discuss your concerns or your issues to help us move the agenda along or bring a project to the community. It's trying to be as optimistic as possible.

Q: Do you feel in the past people have been afraid to speak at council meetings?

A: There was a time when we had council members in the community, a number of years ago, who seemed to be having disagreements, and as people would say to me, we'd almost take bets on how long it took which council member to get so frustrated and upset they lost their cool and walked out of the room. I don't want to see that happen. If you continue to go negative, negative, negative, that's what you get is negativity. But if you continue open lines of communications and have a difference in opinion, then we move on.

Q: What is the one thing Galt as a city or community needs?

A: There's not just one. You need elected officials and the community striving to work together. We need a wastewater treatment plant. I think I've already stated my case on Delta Greens. I'm in favor of it, and have been for 12 years.

This is the way I do things — I was taught this way as a young man. Take a piece of paper. Draw a line down the middle. Put positive on one side and negative on the other. I don't see anything negative about Delta Greens. That's my personal opinion. And there are a lot of other people who feel that way. And there are a lot of other people who will oppose me on it. But if we don't fix the wastewater treatment plant, how are we going to get restaurants, coffee shops or anything else in?

Of course, everything centers around the budget.

Q: What are some of the other priorities?

A: In the next couple of weeks, you'll see me push to reactivate that Public Safety Advisory Committee, either with or without involving Measure R's oversight committee. The role for the committee is to continually evaluate public safety issues within the community, and the committee will take these issues back to the council. Some of the examples include traffic, pedestrian safety, special events, the emergency operations plan and other public safety concerns or issues that happen in the community.

(Shelton started the committee, but it was disbanded when he was voted out of office in 2006.)

Q: Are there any big changes you would make to that committee?

A: It was pretty effective.

One of the other things we want to bring back, and I don't have an acronym for it, but it's more of a developer or builder (committee). Again, both of these committees worked with council, the public and city staff, businesses, developers and others. With all of us working together, it will let us grow in a positive way, and it all comes down to smart growth.

Q: Do you feel most of the council members are behind reforming the committees?

A: Yes, I do.

Q: Other priorities?

A: We are required to do ethics training, and that will be happening next month, and that will be with all the council. I've already started sitting down with every department head and finding out what their concerns are, (what) their needs are and what their objectives and goals are.

We have a budget meeting we need to do on the mid-year budget. We have a goal-setting meeting, and we have to set the priorities. On a personal note, I have advisers. I do personally. Those are people in the community, in the city, in the school district and what we call the old fire district, who are seniors, middle-aged or youth, business world, developers and clergy. It's not about me, Randy. It's about the voters voting me here and (me) working with them.

Q: Previously when you ran in 2002, you said passing a General Plan was a top priority. Is it your top priority this year?

A: I don't know if there is a first priority. There are multiple priorities. There's the budget, reactivating those committees, goals and objectives and the General Plan. There's the wastewater treatment plant. There's the C Street overpass and there's also Twin Cities. There are more. Those are probably the top ones. Now, can I put a number on one of those? No, because to me they're as important as the rest of them.

Q: Is there anything specific you'd like to see happen with any of those?

A: Getting them done. We have to sit down and make some hard decisions. I think everyone knows that.

Q: Is there anything you think you can cut from the budget?

A: Our department heads cut back 5 percent. Are we going to be 100-percent safe? I don't know. Are we going to have to make some hard decisions? We may have to. But we're not the only ones. Look at the state of California; we don't even have a budget. As elected officials on the council or fire board or school district, it's not Republicans or Democrats. With the federal government and with the state of California, you have to forget your parties. You have to do what's right and make the decision so that we can survive.

Q: Why did you want to be mayor?

A: I sat back for two years, and I thought about not running. But there need to be some positive changes. I would like to think that those people who put me here, I know they have faith in me to get me back here as mayor. Do I feel like I can do a good job? I'm going to try my best. I will give 100 percent and more.

Contact reporter Maggie Creamer at maggiec@lodinews.com

Reader Feedback

wtf wrote on Dec 26, 2008 5:43 PM:

" loadeye wrote: "Wouldn't this result in firings of the big boys friends, relatives, supporters and social circle?"

Only if they were hired within the last two years. Since what I propose cuts personnel back to 2006 levels, I would hope it would be the case of last hired, first fired so only those most recent hires would be laid off. "

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Galt Mayor Randy Shelton aims to listen to needs of community

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