Lopez, Luly <[email protected]>
C.1. PUBLIC EMPLOYEE ANNUAL PERFORMANCE EVALUATION Title: City Manager 1 message
Steven Nash > Mon, Jul 6, 2026 at 1:27 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>, Steven Nash < >
Please submit the following to the City Council. Thank you.
City Council Meeting, 6-7-26
C.1. PUBLIC EMPLOYEE ANNUAL PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
Title: City Manager
First, I support our city manager 100%.
For those of you who don't have the institutional knowledge of someone like me, I can say, without reservation, that Mr. Nguyen has been the best city manager Oxnard has had in recent memory.
He has had to manage through some pretty tough situations. A fiscal nightmare of well over a hundred audit findings, structural budget deficits, COVID, clearing st aff of incompetent people, multiple lawsuits from an individual willing to tear down the city in order to implement his bizarre Libertarian dream, a treasurer who seems hell-bent on revenge against the city for perceived injustices; these are unique circumstances that no other city in Ventura County has had to deal with. By the way, those Ventura County cities all want to recruit Alex. They know what a gem we have.
Here is a partial list of his many accomplishments.
Resolved Audit Deficiencies: Successfully cleared the numerous material weakness findings from previous city financial audits.
Stabilized the Budget: Managed a major inherited financial crisis, addressing an immediate multi-million dollar shortfall to rebuild city financial reserves.
Rebuilt Leadership Teams: Appointed highly qualified professionals to stabilize key city sectors, including the city's finance department’s leadership team and the Development Services division.
Established a Homeless Shelter: Opened a year-round, 110-bed homeless shelter to provide immediate relief.
Approved New Solutions Center: Secured approvals for a comprehensive homeless solutions center that integrates a 110-bed shelter, administrative and clinical offices, and 56 permanent supportive housing units.
Expanded Affordable Housing: Promoted and accelerated affordable housing development projects across downtown Oxnard.
City Council Meeting of July 7, 2026
Ormond Beach Power Plant Deal: Negotiated a $25 million trust fund dedicated to dismantling the Ormond Beach Power Plant, accelerating environmental restoration efforts.
Road and Alley Rehabilitation: Directed systemic overhauls of failing local roads, including the major 2024 makeover of Gonzales Road.
Increased Government Transparency: Implemented a modern management culture focusing on open, analytical, and highly transparent communication with residents.
Streamlined City Permitting: Restructured community development processes to make Oxnard more business-friendly, yielding fast-tracked commercial completions like the local Amazon logistics center.
So, please, ignore the haters who attack Mr. Nguyen for their own personal agendas and continue the employment contract with our great city manager, Alex Nguyen.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Best,
Steve Nash
Oxnard, CA 93036
City Council Meeting of July 7, 2026
Lopez, Luly <[email protected]>
Public Comment: City Council July 7, 2026: Agenda Item N1 1 message
Heather Schmidt > Mon, Jul 6, 2026 at 11:35 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Good evening Mayor, Council -
I'm writing this evening regarding agenda Item N1: City Investment Policy and Delegation of Investment Authority. I'm writing to advocate for the adoption of Staff's recommendation that the Council retain its investment authority and direct the CFO or designee to contract with a specially trained firm to invest city funds. I suggest this route for the following reasons:
1. There is an abundance of evidence available that the City Treasurer, when previously afforded investment authority, did not appropriately use that authority. His behaviors since are alarming, at best. The most concerning behavior includes when Mr. Molina engaged in actions that ultimately yielded lost interest income, as well as making bizarre transactions utilizing unsecure email accounts with public funds,
and making very public claims of foreign investments and other false accusations that have eroded the public's trust, unnecessarily. Further to that point, Mr. Molina's email-related behaviors - including those that involve municipal funds - raise very serious cybersecurity concerns and suggest he is a liability to the entire organization and the region's security and safety .
2. I have - personally - heard the City Treasurer say that he should be allowed to invest the public's surplus funds in whatever stocks he'd like, including citing equities such as Apple and Target. I have also seen many of his emails made publicly available through CPRAs sharing all of the "missed opportunities" he sees on a daily basis in the market. This suggests to me that Mr. Molina has a gross lack of understanding of what the State allows municipalities to invest surplus funds in; or even what is appropriate for any municipality - irrespective of existing laws - to engage in. The only appropriate types of investments for a municipality to engage in are grouped in a very narrow field of low risk, high yield investments, such as US
Treasury bonds or LAIF. I am quite frankly stunned by the suggestion that we should accept investing public money in stocks that are tantamount to the Applebees of the market.
3. The habitual refusal by the City Treasurer to accept responsibility for his own actions over the years, and his continuance of those behaviors is - to me - impeachable. Giving investment authority to someone with such an inability to change very serious transgressions would be a reflection of poor judgment by your entire body.
I would like to take this opportunity to also advocate for identifying strategies for moving the City Treasurer to a position that is appointed. An appointment would place a higher level of scrutiny on the candidate, require broader background checks and vetting processes, and afford the Council tools of authority to impose consequences for bad behavior that your body currently does not have. Ventura does this by being a charter city, versus general law. Santa Paula converted their treasurer to appointed via a ballot measure. In Camarillo, the treasurer's duties are assigned to the City Manager.
There is no good reason for the residents of Oxnard to continue to tolerate this man's behavior.
Respectfully -
--
Heather Schmidt, MPA, CySA, CDA
Public Policy Advisor
Heather Christena Schmidt Community Consulting
City Council Meeting of July 7, 2026
Lopez, Luly <[email protected]>
N.1. Finance Department
1 message
Steven Nash < > Mon, Jul 6, 2026 at 1:23 PM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>, Steven Nash < >
Please submit copies to the Mayor and the City Council. Thank you.
CC
6-7-26
N. REPORTS
1. Finance Department
SUBJECT: City Investment Policy & Delegation of Investment Authority.
I strongly object to having our city treasurer have any authority to invest the public’s money.
Mr. Molina has proven himself to be wholly untrustworthy through his repeated violations of inter-personal decorum, public service, work ethic, and the outright betrayal of the public trust.
Mr. Molina has not earned the right to invest on our behalf because of his following actions.
Sexual Innuendos: The 2020 investigation found Molina made inappropriate remarks to female employees in his office. These included suggesting they go home and cook for their husbands, and making a comment wondering if they would give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation if he suffered a heart attack.
Improper Employee Investigations: Molina was found to have improperly investigated a city employee for alleged theft regarding a perceived shortfall in parking lot money during a Dallas Cowboys training camp.
Witness Interference: During the city's investigation into his conduct, he was accused of interfering by discussing the probe with employees who were slated to be interviewed as witnesses.
Exceeding Official Scope: City leadership alleged that Molina repeatedly overstepped his statutory duties by inappropriately weighing in on city procurements and injecting himself into general municipal operations.
Misleading Email Campaigns: He was accused of engaging in "keyboard warfare" by sending tens of thousands of misleading emails that breached city rules to grandstand at the expense of other City Hall departments.
Disrupting the Statutory Financial Audit: In May 2026, city staff reported that Molina made an unverified comment to the city’s independent financial auditors claiming there was an error.
City Council Meeting of July 7, 2026
This forced the auditors to pull the statutory annual audit from the City Council agenda for review, causing friction over risks to municipal bond ratings.
Please adopt investment option No. 3, directing staff to contract with a specially trained firm to invest city funds in strict accordance with the FY 2026-2027 Investment Policy.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Best,
Steve Nash
Oxnard, CA 93036
City Council Meeting of July 7, 2026
Lopez, Luly <[email protected]>
Public comment for 7/7 meeting agenda item# N1
1 message
'Aaron Greer' via City Clerk <[email protected]> Tue, Jul 7, 2026 at 9:16 AM Reply-To: Aaron Greer >
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Email to the City Council
N. REPORTS
1. Finance Department
SUBJECT: City Investment Policy & Delegation of Investment Authority.
I strongly object to having our city treasurer have any authority to invest the public’s money.
Mr. Molina is not reliable and lacks the integrity to carry out the duties of treasurer as shown by his misconduct. His competence and job performance have diminished substantially as evidenced by his mass chain emails filled with false information. He has shown himself to be dishonest and grossly incompetent.
Mr. Molina should not be investing on our behalf because of his poor ethics and lack of integrity. He continues to lie about being a California licensed CPA (which is a B&P code misdemeanor!). His misconduct has been displayed by the sexual harassment scandal, his bullying and threatening of city staff, and his refusal to comply with the Public Records Act.
Please adopt investment option No. 3, directing staff to contract with a specially trained firm to invest city funds in strict accordance with the FY 2026-2027 Investment Policy. At this point the city needs to place the investment responsibility with a professional licensed and bonded firm that will perform. We cannot risk continuing with Mr. Molina making investments on behalf of our city. His unprofessionalism is a serious threat to the financial well-being of our city.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Respectfully,
Aaron Greer
Oxnard resident since 2006.
Forme
r INCO and neighborhood council chair
Aaron Greer
City Council Meeting of July 7, 2026
authority. Even though the City is paying the City Treasurer’s salary, the City cannot afford to gamble with City investments, especially in the present financial climate.
For that reason I urge the City Council to select investment option #3: Direct staff to contract with a specially trained firm to invest city funds in strict accordance with the FY 2026-2027 Investment Policy.
Thank you for your consideration of these comments on this important fiscal matter.
Have a great day,
Barbara
Law Office of Barbara Macri-Ortiz
Oxnard , CA 93031
The information contained in this transmission is attorney privileged and/or confidential information intended for the use of the individual or entity named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited.
City Council Meeting of July 7, 2026