Before the swearing-in for the two new Newman City Council members - Gisel Pimentel and Matthew L. Harden - during a city council meeting on December 10, Newman Mayor Casey Graham handed former council member Laroy McDonald a memorial plaque for his years of service. With the council chambers nearly filled with those in attendance, Laroy stood tall and gave a speech.

“Be an asset for the city and all the people that you’re going to be representing,” Laroy alluded to the new council members. “I know you won’t have the chance to get to know them but they will know you by the work that you do.”

The speech reflected on what Laroy saw over the past couple of years and the spirit of a community located in the rural areas of Stanislaus County.

As Laroy was leaving the council chambers, multiple attendees approached him and thanked him for what he meant to them during his more than eight-year tenure on the Newman City Council. For Laroy, this was a reflection of the respect and trust that he gained from the residents.

“Well, it’s a good feeling … when I look at it, it’s the type of relationship that I built, ” Laroy said. “One thing about it is this is that I can go to Railey’s Supermarkets and basically people that I don’t even know but they know me, I stop and have a conversation with them.”

Now, Laroy reminisces about his time as a council member and being an asset to the Newman community.

“When I took responsibility as becoming a city council for the city of Newman, my whole concept was to basically not just have that title, but basically be an asset for the city. And I believe that with the eight years that I spent with the city, I believe that I contributed in terms of knowledge and the state of California,” Laroy said.

Throughout his tenure, the city of Newman has made impactful decisions such as authorizing the city manager to apply for a grant for the Urban Forest Management Project and approving the Homes Investment Partnerships Program Subrecipent Agreement.

Currently, Laroy is a consultant at his firm, McDonald Consulting, which has been around 10 years.

However, long before he became a city council member, Laroy was not in Newman. Instead, he was in Oakland where he grew up. During his time in the Bay Area, the Oakland native worked as a consultant for the Business Development Institute (BDI), a consulting firm. With BDI, Laroy consulted within the city and county of San Francisco.

He was also involved with a community committee under the late Dianne Feinstein during her tenure as San Francisco Mayor.

Laroy’s move to the Central Valley was sparked after his family consisting of his wife, Cris McDonald and two daughters felt they had outgrown their home in Oakland. For the family, they were looking for a home that had enough rooms for everyone.

With a new home in mind, Laroy and his family began looking at home listings in the newspapers to driving as far as Rockland, Laroy’s family couldn’t find their ideal home. Eventually, the family discovered a listing for a home in Patterson.

With the hope that their home search could end, the family drove to Patterson to see if this was their ideal home. However, it turned out too good to be true and they had to continue searching. As Laroy’s family was trying to get back to the Bay Area through Interstate 5, they ended up getting and instead drove on Highway 33.

What initially seemed a misdirection led to another opportunity.

“When we got down there, we felt that none of those homes fit our needs. And we got lost trying to get back on Highway 5,” Laroy said. “When we got lost, we wind up on Highway 33 and as we would traveling down Highway 33, we saw these signs that said, ‘New Homes’, and it led us to the city of Newman.”

When Laroy and his family approached what is considered the West Side of California’s Central Valley region, they noticed that multiple homes were in development. As they drove past four developments four home, they came across one home. It was a four-bedroom and three-bathroom home and it was the ideal home for Laroy’s family. 

“We want to make sure inside our house that we could be comfortable and entertain ourselves,” Laroy said. “Even when we have company, we would have a home to where they would feel comfortable with.”

Due to the home being in development at the time, Laroy’s family had to wait more than a year and a half for it to be completed. In 2006, the family moved to Newman and began a new chapter in their life. 

Another adjustment that Laroy’s family had to make was getting accustomed to their new way of life. As a Christian family, they woke up at 5 a.m. on Sunday mornings to attend a church in the Bay Area. As the long commutes started to pile up, the family started to look for a local church.

“It became a part where my wife said, ‘We got find us a church down here in the valley where we don’t have to get up every Sunday morning [at] 5 a.m. [to] get ourselves ready to go to the Bay Area’,” Laroy said.

With the hope of finding a local Baptist church in Newman, Cris went on the internet and found one the family could attend. Laroy recalled when the family attended their first Sunday Service at a local Baptist church, they were the only African-Americans in attendance. Despite being new visitors, everyone welcomed the family and embraced them as if they’d been attending Sunday Services for multiple years. This brought Laroy a sense of community.

“It was incredible that every single one of those people in that church embraced us as though if they’ve been knowing us like we’ve been going to the church all of our lives,” Laroy said. “We made friends and still today, there [are] quite a few people that we went to church with.”

Laroy later mentioned that one of the first people he met in Newman was an individual named Manish. He was inspired by Manish’s journey as an immigrant and his approach to operating a business. Manish also convinced Laroy to run for a council member position and he did after filing his paperwork in July 2016.

Following the 2016 general election, Laroy and Murray Day went on to serve on the Newman City Council. Laroy ran for reelection in the 2020 general election against John Pimentel and Walter Stead Waite III. Laroy and Pimentel would win their seats on the city council. According to a 2020 California County, City and School District Election Outcomes document, Laroy received 1,822 of the 4,960 total votes.

In the 2024 general election, Laroy lost his seat on the city council after both Pimentel and Harden received majority votes to become city council members.

When discussing the future of the city council, Laroy believes a precedent has been set on a council member’s responsibilities and what each member can do to help Newman. Additionally, Laroy mentioned the Newman Community Conservation Area Master Plan and what it could mean for the city economically. The master plan focused on housing developments, a water service extension and a wetland project. According to the master plan’s document, it will occupy two parcel areas: a 24-acre parcel located near the northeast of Brazo Road and a 78-acre parcel located at the southeast corner of Canal School Road and Inyo Avenue.  

One of the projects that Laroy looks forward to with the master plan is the Newman Nature Park. The park, located east and southeast of the 78-acre parcel, will focus on providing outdoor experiences for disadvantaged youth in Newman and outdoor learning areas. 

Laroy mentioned that the project will include something to honor former Public Works Director, Kathryn Reyes, who passed away in January 2024 at the age of 59.

For Laroy, Reyes was great at her job securing state and federal funding for the city. He wanted to ensure that Reyes was remembered for her contribution to Newman.

“I made it very clear that when she passed away if we don’t name that park after her, do a memorial [or] something in terms of making sure people know that she was behind this park,” Laroy said. “That was a project that I’m going to embrace because of the woman that was behind it and what she put into that project.” 

As Laroy looks back on his life, he credits his journey with a message that has stuck with him: When God has something for you, it’s for you.

While he isn’t currently a part of the city council, Laroy still wants to find ways to contribute towards Newman.

“I made it very clear, especially with [the city manager] Michael Holland and the city clerk, Mike Maier, [that] they have an open door to me and that I will always be available to them,” Laroy said. “I think that I contributed as much as I could, but I want to be able to and they know is that they can call upon me if ever needed.”