Discussing the Royal Theater project’s expenses often sparks heated exchanges between Guadalupe officials and city staff.
That trend continued during the Guadalupe City Council’s Feb. 10 meeting, when staff postponed an agendized update from project manager Tom Brandeberry.
“We don’t have a full presentation, … but I’m going to give you a status update,” Interim City Administrator David Trujillo said at the hearing. “This isn’t a full comprehensive.”
In January, staff told the council that Brandeberry would deliver a comprehensive report about the project’s finances, including a deeper look into a cost summary from 2025 with inconsistent line item amounts between the project manager’s records and the city’s.
While $2.9 million was listed as the total for soft cost estimates, the included items added up to about $2.2 million.
At the Feb. 10 meeting, Trujillo told the council that staff is still working on getting to the bottom of these discrepancies.
“It looks like the problem is with the city’s invoices not being coded properly,” Trujillo said. “These invoices are all over the place, … where whole invoices are coded for multiple things, and the total is being applied to the Royal Theater, versus the one or two line items that actually go to the Royal Theater.”
During the meeting, staff passed printed sheets—not included in the staff report—around to council members that outlined some of the invoices Trujillo was referring to.
After looking at the page he was handed, Mayor Ariston Julian said: “Clear as mud.”
Councilmember Whitney Furness asked Trujillo when the council should expect to get the project update that was originally agendized.
“With the last year of me asking these questions, … is it possible to get a comprehensive report of what’s been spent and where it’s been spent, instead of just the discrepancies?” Furness said. “What kind of information was going to be presented tonight that we’re not getting?”
“It was my understanding—this whole time, through all of this—that this was the information that was being requested,” Trujillo replied. “That there was a request for a comparison between how much Tom has been tracking and how much the city has been tracking.
“Would it be possible for you to email me exactly what you’re looking for?” he asked Furness. “I don’t want to keep doing this over and over. … We’re digging into it. That’s all we can do. I don’t know, I’m kind of at a loss for words.”
During public comment, speaker Mira Beyeler said she’s left multiple meetings about the Royal Theater project feeling frustrated.
“I think it’s concerning that there’s still a miscommunication about what’s being looked for because I think it has been really clearly asked by the community to get that information,” Beyeler said. “It is frustrating I guess for us to ask for updates and have it continually be delayed, and delayed, and delayed. I just want to voice that.”
Mayor Julian addressed Beyeler after her comments.
“We’re trying to get to that,” Julian said. “There’s been some changes in our staffing. There’s changes in our financial system, and we’re trying to get to the bottom of that. I don’t think we can be more transparent than that.”
This article appears in February 19 – February 26, 2026.