WILLIAMS, CA (MPG) – A familiar figure is back on the Williams City Council.
Former Colusa County Sheriff and Williams Mayor John Troughton Jr. was sworn in on Dec. 11 for a fourth non-consecutive term.
Troughton and 2024 Mayor Don Parson were elected and reelected, respectively, without challenge on Nov. 5.
“I hadn’t planned to run again at my age,” Troughton, 86, said. “I waited until three days before the filing deadline and saw that no one had filed.”
Troughton replaces former Mayor Roberto Mendoza, who did not seek reelection.
Mendoza was first elected in 2016 and served on the city council alongside Troughton during his first term. During his tenure, Mendoza served as the city’s representative on the Colusa County One-Stop Partnership, Williams Fire Protection Authority, and the Williams Community Center Association. He also served on the Williams Capital Improvement Committee, among other duties.
“It was my pleasure to serve,” Mendoza said after the meeting, through which he sat as an observer after stepping down from the dais.
After administering the oath of office to Troughton, City Clerk Mariana Pineda swore in Parsons, who was first elected in 2020 in the three-way contest that included Mendoza – and forced Troughton off the dais by three votes.
At the city’s last meeting of the year, Troughton and Parsons joined council members Kate Dunlap and Alfred Sellers Jr. in selecting Maria Belmontes Leyva to serve as mayor.
Leyva, who was the top vote-getter in 2022 when she was elected to serve her first term on the council, served as mayor pro tempore under Parsons last year. She had unanimous support to take the helm of the city through 2025.
While Williams’ Dec. 11 reorganization meeting was uneventful, the new year may ring in old arguments.
As he did when first elected to the Williams City Council 16 years ago, Troughton admits his penchant for fiscal prudence.
In the four years since he left the city council, Troughton said administrative salaries have skyrocketed, and city officials have not been forthcoming with the public about the increases – nor the $4.1 million in public employee pension debt that is accumulating nearly $300,000 a year in interest.
“If we keep doing that, we will keep doing this forever,” Troughton said. “What we need to do is use some of our money internally to pay for that debt and get rid of some of that interest. What is going to happen is that someone is going to be sitting here 10 years from now still paying on it.”
Troughton said citywide personnel costs have jumped 39%, including a 52.9% increase for the public works director and a 22% increase for the city administrator in less than three years, without the renewal contracts discussed in open session, as they had been in the past.
“If we are going to pay these people this much, then we need to at least be more transparent about it,” Troughton said after the meeting.
Troughton was first elected to public office as Colusa County Sheriff in 1974. In the private sector, he operated his own trucking company and was a private investigator. He was instrumental in starting the Sacramento Valley Museum, at the site of his old high school, the Colusa RedHawks Athletic Foundation, and the Williams Brown and Gold Boosters.
Before Levya adjourned the meeting, Troughton requested an appointment to the Finance Committee when the council reconvenes in January.
He also asked Leyva to put an item on the agenda for the council to discuss paying down the pension debt and the unsustainable pay increases to public employees.