NEWARK — A longtime Newark councilman announced this week that he is stepping down because he has been “priced out of the city.”
Mike Bucci announced this on Wednesday in a post on Facebook. He said he and his wife couldn’t buy a house in the East Bay town.
“Unfortunately, we are just the next in a long line of people who have been priced out of town. We have tried to buy a house a few times over the years, but it has never worked out for us,” Bucci said.
According to Zillow.com, the median home value in Newark is just over $1.3 million, which is a 10.5 percent increase from last year.
City of Newark via Bay City News
Bucci, 47, has served on the Newark Council since 2014 and is a public works estimator at SilMan Industries, according to his LinkedIn page. His term on the council was set to expire in 2026.
Bucci said in a Facebook post that he was frustrated because he couldn’t afford a house in the city.
“The most insane thing is that even with $60,000 and a credit score of 785, we can’t get into the cheapest house in Newark for less than $7,500 a month,” Bucci said. “If I spend my entire salary from Millwright and the council on it every month, it’s still not enough.”
The annual salary of a Newark city councilman is $16,452.
The councillor said he had seen “many friends being turned away over and over for years” and that his family would likely have been better off if they had moved years earlier.
“The fact that there is no future for us in the city I love is a bitter pill to swallow,” Bucci said.
Bucci did not immediately respond to a request for comment on which city he would move to now that he has stepped down as councilman.
