Meet Diana Lowery

Councilmember Diana Lowery is serving her first term on the Stockton City Council having begun in 2009. Prior, she had served as City of Stockton Planning Commissioner for 8 years having been elected Chairperson and Chair.

Her primary focus on the City Council is improving financial stability, reducing crime, engaging neighborhood watch programs and supporting youth.
Diana has been a self-employed Stockton business owner for over 35 years.

Recognizing the serious fiscal challenges faced by the City of Stockton, she has been a strong advocate for creative public - private partnerships to solve community needs and reduce general fund expenditures . Dealing with our financial problems, now, rather than further delaying this matter has been very important to Diana during her term.

Diana is an active community volunteer and has been for decades: including service as President and Vice President of the Stockton Sister Cities Association. She has served as Chair of the Stockton\Parma, Italy International Sister Cities projects for 14 years.

Her expertise and heritage has been recognized by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger with an appointment to the California Italian-American Task Force.

Most recognized by generations of Stockton's youth as "Sally-Save-Water", she has won several local, state and national awards and recognitions for water conservation and pollution prevention educational programming.

Councilmember Lowery is a 4th generation Stocktonian; she is married to Wayne and has one son, Steven who is married and lives in Stockton with his wife Nikki and daughter Mae.

Diana's recent work includes:

Local Hire Ordinance

Diana was a advocate to promote the local hire ordinance. This ordinance requires projects of over $100,000. to hire a minimum of 50% Stockton residents, during construction.
This keeps jobs and money in our local community.

March Lane Bicycle and Pedestrian Trail Greenscape Project

A large project to break ground late April will be the March Lane Corridor between Pershing and Percissi Lane. The project will provide great improvements for a major artery of Stockton which sits between the University of the Pacific and Delta College. A excellent example of public - private partnering which included several partners. It will create bike, pedestrian and economic enhancement to an area plagued for years by weeds. The enhancements will include new low mow and no mow native grasses.

Groundbreaking will occur late April. This project will be constructed using no General Funds.

VISTAS – Volunteers help Stockton

Recognizing the serious fiscal challenges facing the City of Stockton, Diana Lowery looked for ways to allow those who wanted to volunteer, to help our City.

Diana was the driving force behind the effort to establish VISTAS - Volunteers In Service to Aid Stockton - Schools, churches. Individuals and nonprofit organizations, by the hundreds, have tackled a variety of community projects.

New Business Micro - Loan Program

A local business owner for 35 years, Diana Lowery knows that access to capital is a critical component in an aggressive jobs program.

TThe City of Stockton’s Small Business Micro-loan Program provides Stockton “for-profit” businesses with business loans of up to $30,000 (depending on the availability of funds) that can be used for operating capital, tenant improvements, etc. The Small Business Micro Loan program is funded with federal Community development Block Grants (CDBG) and is in partnership with the San Joaquin Delta College Small Business Development Center.

Miracle Mile Improvements

Enlisting a key community supporter, the University of the Pacific, and local community groups Councilmember Lowery led the effort to improve Pacific Avenue /Fulton and the Pacific / Harding approach areas.

An $85,000 donation from the University of Pacific paid for the design.

Future construction funding has come from grants and Measure K, groundbreaking should commence late August.

Save Our Tuxedo Post Office !

When the Federal Government proposed closing the Tuxedo Neighborhood Post Office, Diana spoke with Washington representatives to explain neighbors concerns and helped organize a neighborhood protest regarding this idea.

“ Our local post office is an essential part of the Miracle Mile neighborhood, said Lowery. Many of our residents are older and driving across town to mail a package is a real challenge. Preserving our local post office united our neighborhood and they heard us all the way to Washington DC”.

El Dorado Street Improvement Project Phase 2

This project will replace the distruction of trees which occurred in Phase One in the mid 2000's.

After many community meetings and public involvement the Stockton Street Improvement design was agreed upon and approved by Council. This project contains planting and maintenance of 144 trees, Alpine and Fulton intersection improvements and enhanced street lighting.

This ptoject contains no general funds. It is anticipated to begin in late Summer.

Safe Streets To School Project

Diana actively supported the grant request for safe streets in the Harrison School area.

Families were in great need of curbs, gutters and sidewalk upgrades for children to safely get to school.

A grant of $ 700,000. was received to fund these much needed improvements for these children.

Fight Crime – Light Up the Night!

Councilmember Lowery brought PG&E, the Siemens Corporation and the City of Stockton together to create a new program to provide free energy efficient light bulbs to residents. Increasing porch lighting is a strong deterrent to crime, particularly burglaries and assaults according to San Joaquin County Sheriff Steve Moore.

“Criminals tend to avoid well-lit homes, said Moore. Increasing lighting around the home, particularly the porch area, is an effective way to deter crime."

Diana Has been hard at work for District 4 and her City !