Mayor & City Council

A Message from the Mayor

Welcome to the City of King City’s website.  My name is Jeff Pereira, a life-long resident of King City, and its current Mayor.

Although King City is a small town, current population of about 12,000, it is filled with many amenities you would only expect from a larger city.  We have an expanding state-of-the-art hospital, an airport, a golf course, several city parks, a high school and several elementary schools, a hometown newspaper and radio station, a swimming pool, local transit system, many churches, good shopping, a skateboard facility, rodeo grounds and much more.  A beautiful County park with an agricultural museum is adjacent to the city and we are the home of the Salinas Valley Fairgrounds.

Our population growth is about 4% per year and about 800 new homes will be built during the next several years.  Within that same time frame we anticipate that we will have an Amtrak station that will enable residents to travel to larger cities for special shopping, shows and restaurants, and then return to their homes in a small, quiet, outstanding community – the City of King City.

City Council

Jeff Pereira– Mayor 

Susan Kleber – Mayor Pro Tem    

Robert Cullen– Council member

Terry Hughes– Council member

The City of King City derived its name from pioneer Charles King, born in New York in 1844.  In 1884 he purchased 13,000 acres of a Spanish land grant and founded the King Ranch.  He introduced wheat to the Salinas Valley and was so successful that the Southern Pacific Railroad extended its lines to King Ranch in 1886.  The city was then known as Hog Town.  The first agent at the station was Ernst Steinbeck who, with his wife Olive Hamilton, produced John Steinbeck, the Nobel Prize winning author.  The Hamilton house, located at 416 Lynn Street, is now the Carriage House Inn Bed & Breakfast operated by the Rev. Frank and Barbara Starkey.

King City’s weekly newspaper, “The Rustler”, was first published in 1900, and electricity came to King City in 1909.  King City was incorporated in 1911 with a population of about 500, including 14 saloons. The first hospital was located on Broadway in 1932.  The expanding state-or-the-art Mee Memorial Hospital was built in 1962.

In 1901 the Civic Improvement Club was organized for the purpose of improving the town and planting trees.  This club became the King City Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture in 1911.