The aftermath of the Pacific Grove City Council vote in 2025 to increase councilmembers’ compensation continues to unfold, this time with the certification of a future ballot measure that would make it harder for future councils to increase their pay.
The “Initiative Charter Amendment for Accountability, Oversight and Transparency” created by former councilmember, and current mayoral candidate, Luke Coletti and his group Transparent Pacific Grove, attained enough signatures to be placed on a ballot, after the Monterey County Registrar of Voters verified 1,725 signatures as of Sept. 22. The measure needed 1,582 to succeed.
Coletti and Transparent P.G. volunteers began collecting signatures in February but missed the deadline to make it onto the Nov. 3 ballot. Per the initiative, it will be placed on the next regularly scheduled municipal election, which is November 2028.
On Wednesday, Oct. 7, the P.G. City Council voted 6-0, with Councilmember Chaps Poduri absent, to accept the Registrar’s verification of signatures.
If it passes, the measure would require voter approval at a general municipal election to set compensation or provide city-paid benefits for the mayor and councilmembers. It would also require the Council to obtain and publicly release a fiscal impact report.
“This effort was always about establishing a permanent safeguard,” said Coletti in a press release. “The City Council should not have the final say over its own compensation and benefits. The voters should.”
The skirmish over council compensation began in 2025, after the City Council voted 5-2 in favor of raising compensation for the first time in 26 years. The reasons given included wanting to increase the diversity of future candidates to include people who are working and those with young children or elder care responsibilities, by providing an increased stipend.
Currently the mayor receives $700 a month and the six councilmembers each receive $420 monthly. The ordinance passed by the Council was to increase the stipend to $1,610 and $966, respectively. The Council did not include medical benefits.
A few weeks later, Coletti pursued a referendum to reverse the decision. He and his volunteers successfully collected enough signatures for it to pass by August 2025. The Council repealed the ordinance in September, later voting to put the matter to the voters in June 2026. Measure C, as it was labeled, lost 56 percent to 44 percent.
Meanwhile, Coletti continued work on collecting signatures for the charter amendment and declared his candidacy for mayor in a bid to unseat incumbent Nick Smith.
One additional fallout to the overall struggle is a Sept. 21 anonymous complaint filed with the California Fair Political Practices alleging that Coletti and Transparent P.G. failed to file certain campaign fundraising forms, specifically Form 496, which is required when a candidate or committee expends more than $1,000 in a 24-hour period.
As evidence, the complaint points to information that was submitted on a different campaign expenditure form, Form 460, outlining several expenditures made during the Measure C campaign that were $1,000 or over. They included newspaper advertising and two citywide mailers, one in February and one in May, each over $4,000.
On Sept. 23, an assistant chief of the FPPC’s Enforcement Division, Christopher Burton, sent Coletti a letter by email requesting information and documentation about the allegations.
“At this time, we have not made any determination about the allegations made in the complaint,” Burton wrote. “Upon receipt of your response, we will review the information to determine whether or not to investigate the allegations.”
It turns out Burton’s letter was sent to the incorrect email address due to a typo. Coletti wasn’t aware of the complaint until the Weekly contacted him on Monday, Oct. 12. He sent a written statement on behalf of Transparent P.G. on Tuesday.
“We disagree with the allegations in this anonymous complaint, which reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of State law and the obvious distinction between Measure C and our proposed City Charter Amendment,” Coletti said.
“The relevant question under State law is whether the advertisements expressly advocate for the defeat of Measure C, or otherwise unambiguously urge voters to defeat it. They clearly don’t, and the anonymous complaint fails to allege otherwise,” he said.
The only call to action was to sign the petition for the charter initiative, not to vote against Measure C, Coletti said.
“We are confident that an informed review of both State law and the content of the advertisements will confirm that no violation occurred.”