BY GARTH STAPLEY
Modesto Focus
The corruption scandal that cost StanCOG’s executive director her job last year is under criminal investigation, Stanislaus County District Attorney Jeff Laugero confirmed.
A separate investigation commissioned by the Stanislaus Council of Government’s Policy Board concluded May 7 and results have been shared with prosecutors, board members told The Modesto Focus.
That investigation, conducted by a Sacramento law firm, supports an Aug. 7 Policy Board decision to fire Rosa De Leon Park for “unreasonable and excessive spending of public funds,” including for personal benefit, according to an executive summary obtained by The Modesto Focus.
Park misspent tens of thousands of taxpayer money on luxury hotels, first-class airline tickets and high-end car rentals, the investigation found, confirming many accusations in a scandalous June 2025 civil grand jury report.
StanCOG coordinates regional transportation planning and funding for Stanislaus County and its nine cities.
Park also “unilaterally increased the vacation accrual rates in the Employee Handbook without the Policy Board’s approval” to enrich herself, the executive summary said.
And Park regularly dished out “unprofessional and discourteous” treatment to her employees in violation of StanCOG policy, the investigation found.
Through her attorney, Park “declined to participate in the investigation,” the executive summary says.
Her Stockton attorney, Kevin J. Rooney, did not return calls seeking comment for this article.
Laugero declined to discuss specifics of his office’s “ongoing investigation,” including potential criminal charges.
Getting StanCOG ‘back on the right track‘
“I feel validated and vindicated,” said Stanislaus County Supervisor Mani Grewal, who led a charge to hold Park accountable without unanimous support of others on the Policy Board.
Vito Chiesa, supervisor board chairman, said the investigation “pretty much reaffirmed some of the information in the grand jury report.”
County Supervisor Buck Condit, the current StanCOG Policy Board chairman, withheld thoughts on the investigation because it hasn’t been made public.
He did discuss the agency’s moves to right the ship, however, including tweaks of the agency’s vacation policy in September and travel and expense policies in March.
“We’ve made strides,” Condit said. “We’re constantly using information from the investigations to make us better and get back on the right track.”
The Policy Board majority – made up of people elected to city and county offices – felt that the grand jury had dug up enough evidence to warrant firing Park on Aug. 6. Their attorneys hired a Sacramento law firm, Van Dermyden Makus Law Corporation, in October to make sure of the board’s legal footing with an independent probe.
Van Dermyden Makus found that from July 2021 to April 2024 using taxpayer money Park spent at least:
$17,354 on luxury hotels$44,389 on “luxury travel,” defined as high-end rental cars, first-class airline tickets and premium ride sharing$4,457 on fine dining$2,324 on personal items
She also violated credit card policy and failed to submit receipts for some expenses and those she did “frequently lacked detail and were not itemized,” the report found.
More egregious, in the eyes of some Policy Board members, was a mysterious 2022 change in protocol granting her 11 weeks of paid vacation and allowing her to cash out whatever wasn’t used, which could have enriched Park up to $55,000 a year. She made the change without board approval, the investigation found.
Investigation’s narrow scope
The investigation appears limited to Park and did not look at other StanCOG employees or Policy Board members, many of whom also used the public’s money to dine and travel.
Her second in command, administrative services manager Cindy Malekos, resigned in September rather than face the possibility of discipline or termination, some Policy Board members told The Modesto Focus.
Malekos and Park were the only employees who might have taken advantage of overgenerous vacation payouts because of their years at StanCOG, the grand jury found.
A JP Morgan Chase bank card in Malekos’s name was responsible for more than $121,000 in spending over five years, a Modesto Focus analysis of financial records found.
Whether she had covered expenses for others in her position as head of administrative services was unclear, however, and she has not been reached for comment.
In addition to updating vacation policies and the employee handbook, the Policy Board recently hired a new executive director to lead StanCOG. Amber Collins took over the position in March and several board members said she has their confidence.
She previously held a similar job in Calaveras County and also worked as a transportation planner in the private sector.
Also, a new finance director is set to come on board in late June, and a vacancy for a StanCOG transportation planning position soon will be filled, Condit said.
“It’s painfully slow, but we are moving forward,” he said.
Chiesa said, “I can see stability coming. Maybe it’s not quite here, but it’s coming.”
‘This is not StanCOG’s money‘
But some are disappointed at the pace.
It’s not clear, for example, whether oversight of StanCOG’s finances will revert to the Stanislaus County auditor-controller. The elected officer handled that duty until 2017, when the Policy Board gave it to StanCOG’s financial services director working directly under Park – a change that may have contributed to abuse, the grand jury found.
Grewal said he has advocated for third-party checks and balances since. “But I’m not encouraged by the conversations that have occurred thus far about what the new plan for oversight is,” he said.
County Supervisor Channce Condit said leaders should explore restructuring StanCOG to give the county and cities more authority to receive state and federal funding.
“We should give another look at reconfiguring the whole organization,” Channce Condit said. “I just think it’s an unnecessary layer of government.”
The Stanislaus County Taxpayer Association, which advocated for the independent investigation in the wake of the grand jury report, still hopes for more answers.
“We need to ensure that what happened in the past does not happen in the future,” the group’s Nick Dokoozlian said. “Part of that is holding our public officials accountable, and understanding what exactly went wrong, and we don’t know yet if it was a personnel or policy issue.
“This is not StanCOG’s money. This is not city money. This is not county money,” Dokoozlian continued. “This is our money, and they are the stewards of that money.”
