What's at stake:
Four candidates are trying to unseat incumbent Steve Brandau this March for North Fresno's representative at the Fresno County Board of Supervisors.
The race for Fresno County’s District 2 at the Board of Supervisors is not an ordinary election. This spring, amongst five candidates, a seat at history is on the ballot.
In March, north Fresno voters will decide a critical swing vote on the county Board of Supervisors, one who will wield the power to decide the future of the region’s economy, housing, environment.
At stake is the fate of vast swaths of land in north and south Fresno. After a 30-year hiatus, the county is proposing to start developing again the fringes north of Fresno, in the Friant area for luxury homes. And in south Fresno, the county’s plans for industrial development are even attracting the California Attorney General’s attention. Sandwiched between the two plans is an unprecedented blast mine proposal on the San Joaquin River.
Whoever is elected this year will also be a potential swing vote on future debates in all three proposals.
More than consuming farmlands and altering hillscapes is at stake. The board’s present $5 billion annual budget, the four challengers for the District 2 race say, is in crisis.
The county’s key service – social services – is at a breaking point. Turnover on some of the county’s key social services is over 100%. In recent years, other wings of the county have produced horrors from downtown offices: foster kids forced to sleep on desks and the ground. And while homelessness in the region is at record highs, the number of beds for unhoused people has fallen by 25% over the last year.
This March’s election could also be a referendum on the Board’s culture wars. If none of the five candidates get more than 50% of the votes, the top two will face each other this November.
In recent years, the board has taken on mask-mandates, climate change protections from extreme heat, and tried to preserve slurs against Native Americans on road signs and town names. In District 2, incumbent Steve Brandau has dipped his toes on a new cultural front – creating a controversial book review board last October for children’s books.
Four candidates are running to replace the incumbent, Brandau. Some align with the incumbent’s positions, and some don’t.
District 2, which spans much of north Fresno and stretches from Shaw Avenue to Woodward Park, is one of two board seats up for grabs this March.
The district’s boundaries were changed in 2021, after the supervisors rejected a map drawn by the Equitable Map Coalition and selected an alternative similar to one crafted by Alex Tavlian, a Republican operative who is an ex-staffer for some of the supervisors.
Who are the candidates?
Brandau, 60, the incumbent, owns a small carpet-cleaning business and was a Fresno City councilmember from 2012 to 2019. He joined the board in 2019.
Brandau said he is proud of his time as a county supervisor. “I’ve gotten a lot of stuff done, big stuff,” he said.
In response to the foster kids crisis, Brandau said, he led the push to upgrade the county’s foster facility, gave social workers a raise, and got a new director for the county’s social services, who also had moved vital social services from west Fresno to Clovis.
As far as big projects are concerned, Brandau said one of his major achievements is getting the ball rolling on a 3,000-acre industrial park in south central Fresno, which he said is the right mix of economy and environment.
“It’s a heavy lift,” he said. “It’s going to bring in 40,000 jobs to the community and put Fresno on the map as far as the new economy in the state of California.”
Garry Bredefeld, 64, has been a Fresno City councilmember for District 6, in northeast Fresno, since 2017. He was a councilman from 1997-2001 and ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2000 against Alan Autry.
Bredefeld says the Board of Supervisors has become “nothing more than a good old boys club” and a “retirement club.” If elected, he wants to hire more prosecutors and correctional officers, because, he said, the county’s jail system is a “revolving door of releasing criminals.”
“Public safety is my No. 1 priority,” Bredefeld said. “Making it safe for our county, making sure we have a business climate that helps businesses, reducing regulations at the county, ensuring that the planning and development department is doing everything you can to help the private sector and getting government out of the way – those are my priorities.”
Bredefeld wants to rock the boat on other parts too. He said he wants to fire Dr. Rais Vohra, a UCSF-Fresno ER doctor who serves as the county’s public health officer, due to Vohra’s recommendation of a stay-at-home order and mask mandates early in the coronavirus pandemic. Bredefeld also thinks that climate change is naturally caused, and he wants to abolish the county’s needle-exchange program.
“That program needs to come to an end,” he said. “I’m going to fight that program, real hard/”
Paul Dictos, 80, has run the county’s tax rolls since 2011 as the Assessor-Recorder. “I’m running because I’m the most qualified,” he said. “I’ve been at the county’s Hall of Records for 15 years. I supervise 130 people, and I took the county’s tax roll from $57 billion to $110 billion dollars.”
Dictos’ major initiative would be “bringing fiscal accountability to the county.”
Dictos also plays harmonica.
Dion Bourdase, 38, is a veteran social worker in Fresno County’s social services department. He sees the department as the linchpin in the county’s fight against poverty, but says triple-digit turnover rates amongst staff are bringing that mission to the brink of crisis.
If elected, Bourdase aims to renovate the social services department, by improving working conditions, increasing wages, and increasing staff retention.
“I think there’s a lot of nepotism and a lot of ‘yes-men’ and unfortunately it leads to worse and worse outcomes for all of us,” he said. “The foundation of the county are the services that the county provides, whether they’re food stamps and Medi-Cal or our public health system.”
Bryce Herrera, 27, owns a small family business called Calico Catering. He is an ex-staffer for Fresno Councilmember Luis Chavez.
“I felt that this was an important seat as a registered Democrat. We’ve been looking at the electorate, and we’re seeing the shift in the demographics. Very simply, we’re looking to flip the county blue.”
“My top issue is homelessness and the housing shortage. Rents keep rising. Wages aren’t keeping up with those increases and people are being priced out of the market,” he said. “The county has so many resources that aren’t being leveraged appropriately.”
Where they stand on the county’s major land plans
Sprawling Fresno County stands at a critical juncture, facing two colossal land-use decisions that will shape its future. The Board of Supervisors in the coming years will face two propositions – an industrial park in south Fresno and high-end residential developments in Friant – that promise economic boons but carry weighty environmental and social concerns.
The industrial park, championed by Brandau, has been touted as a green-tinged job engine, but also has garnered high-profile critiques from the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, who fears the project could violate south Fresno resident’s right to fair housing due to excess pollution caused by heavy duty trucks. In other polluted regions of the state, local community groups have called for a moratorium on building new warehouse space.
But to Dictos, the county’s need for the industrial park is an existential priority to his campaign.
“We need it,” Dictos said. “The county needs to grow, or it will die.”
Bredefeld also supports the industrial park.
However, two of the candidates, Bourdase and Herrera, are not so enthusiastic.
Bourdase rebuked the plan, citing its potential to exacerbate environmental racism and said it would ultimately fail to deliver on its promises of economic prosperity.
“It would be completely ignorant to claim that there hasn’t been a history of misuse when it comes to the land in our county,” Bourdase said. He pointed to the legacy of redlining in south Fresno and the unequal distribution of environmental burdens, stating, “areas of our community, unfortunately, have been saddled with the majority, if not the entirety, of our industrial development, and the negative consequences that come along with it. This is not fair.”
Herrera also said he doesn’t support the industrial park. “I don’t think that we should further pollute historically underserved communities, like south central,” he said. “We should listen to the community.”
Instead of simply seeking out new corporate tenants, Bourdase argued, “the conversation needs to be centered around responsible development, not dictated by creating industrial space.”
Bourdase called for a shift in focus towards long-term community partnerships. He pointed to the new west Fresno college campus as an example, which he said helps foster positive local relationships and sustainable growth in an area that was an industrial hot spot for decades.
Bourdase also expressed serious reservations about the potential for the industrial park to create a cycle of “dead-end jobs” characterized by high turnover and worker burnout.
Citing data from similar developments, he warned, “if all we do is we bring in new people like Amazon to burn them out…we’re not just going to be able to somehow find new bodies.”
About 30 miles north of the industrial park, a different future unfolds. In the quiet community of Friant, key policy decisions loom over whether to plan for thousands of new luxury homes – exclusive communities near Millerton lake, like Riverstone and Tesoro Viejo in Madera County.
While local developers have struggled to build in the area for decades, Brandau said he is up to the task to build in the area for his next term.
“The similar market to Riverstone and Rio Vista is going to be at Friant – or somewhere where people feel like they’re not in an urban setting,” Brandau said. “There’s just a desire there. I want to allow that to happen.
“The whole scene is fraught with little problems,” he added, pointing to traffic impacts, paltry water supplies, and far-flung sewer issues. “I would not move forward in any serious measure on Friant until there was a plan.”
Bredefeld is also in favor of new homes in Friant – so long as it isn’t “leapfrog development.” However, he cited the region’s most sprawling communities as his inspiration.
“As a county, we need that growth. We see that going on in Madera…they’re growing by leaps and bounds. Those are the kinds of things that I will support.”
The other three candidates – Bourdase, Dictos, and Herrera – cautioned against the idea. Dictos said the area is unfit for development.
“It was a mistake to build there,” Dictos said of Friant. “The developers are holding the county hostage with their leapfrog developments. They build and build, and then they tell us ‘now give us the road.’ This won’t happen on my watch. I don’t support a build-out on Friant.”
Herrera, who is Native American, said the wildlands near Millerton Lake should be preserved, not built on.
“It’s honestly unfortunate to see so much development there,” he said. “I think that we should conserve the natural landscapes that we value.
“We need to move in the opposite direction from urban sprawl to infill needs,” he said.
Bourdase, the social worker, said that the Friant decision will be one of the county’s toughest. “There’s nothing wrong with us using the area that we have, but are we also thinking about all the other things that come along with that?”
“Why don’t we look at building upwards? Why don’t we make it so everybody in our community benefits, not just the people that have the means to be able to live in an exclusive community up in the foothills?”
However, Brandau said he’s looking for better infrastructure plans from developers. Over the last 30 years, small pop-up subdivisions in the area haven’t done enough to address roads, police, water and sewer, Brandau said.
“If you want to triple or quadruple the number of homes … if there’s some plan to do a Riverstone-type development at Friant, you show me how that works. You show me the plan for the infrastructure. Because right now, there’s nothing like that.”
Where they stand on Fresno County’s road crisis
Fresno County’s once top-ranking road system now lies in disarray, a victim of both heavy-duty truck traffic and years of funding shortfalls. Over the past decade, heavy duty trucks – causing thousands of times the damage of passenger vehicles – have become the county’s fastest-growing traffic segment, according to Fresno’s leading transportation planning agency, leaving a $1.7 billion hole in the county’s road maintenance budget.
Today, residents are forced to navigate a maze of potholes and cracks, a stark contrast to the county’s former reputation for top-notch roads.
Political leaders face a monumental task: finding the will and the means to repair the county’s crumbling network. The failed 2022 Measure C, aimed at bolstering road maintenance, ultimately cut public transit and trails funding, highlighting the delicate balancing act at play.
In the coming years, the District 2 supervisor will likely make key decisions on how to balance these priorities. Fresnoland asked each candidate questions on how to solve the problem, and whether new fees on the trucking industry would be a serviceable option to make up for the road maintenance shortfall.
Brandau: Hesitant on truck fees, eyes highway expansion
Brandau expressed reservations about imposing new fees on the trucking industry, fearing it could drive them away. While not advocating for a regional approach, he said “I don’t want Fresno County to be penalized” for taking unilateral action on the trucking industry’s costs to local infrastructure.
Brandau further champions the expansion of Highway 41, to eight lanes, as a potential project for the 2026 Measure C renewal to tackle.
Bredefeld: Silent on funding, seeks fresh start
Bredefeld, on the other hand, remained silent on specific funding measures, opting for a broader call for change. He criticized the current state of affairs, but offered no detailed solutions.
“The next version of Measure C has to focus on road maintenance,” he said.
Bourdase: Blames Bredefeld’s record, pushes for equitable solutions
Bourdase called Bredefeld’s record on road maintenance “embarrassing,” but did not take a hard stance on new funding streams to pay for road maintenance.
“He was bragging about putting $15 million toward Fresno city roads over a period of seven years,” Bourdase recalled a recent conversation with Brandau. “I don’t believe that’s enough. I don’t think that’s bragging rights. I don’t think that’s something you should even be talking about.
“We need to figure out how to fix our roads – it is a balance between finding out how to do that effectively and not burden our community. We have so much more to give than to just go along for the ride with the status quo.”
Dictos: Points finger at Prius owners
Dictos said the county’s road quality problem was nearly unsolvable.
“The county has deferred maintenance of $1 billion. Measure C has already failed and is going to fail again,” he said. “What do we do next? How can we catch up?”
He said that the trucking industry is already paying their way through the state gas tax. Instead, he pointed the finger at people with fuel-sipping or EV cars, who don’t pay into the gas tax, which helps pay for road repairs.
“There has to be a way for people with electric cars and hybrids to pay their fair share.”
Where they stand on climate change
Future votes by the supervisor in District 2 will stand at a pivotal moment in the fight against climate change. Two crucial decisions – one on transportation and another on land use – will hold the keys to whether the county can achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, as recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Measure C, a multi-billion-dollar ballot measure shaping the county’s transportation future, holds immense weight. As the single largest source of emissions in Fresno, transportation plays a critical role in land use patterns and the county’s overall carbon footprint.
The outcome of Measure C, most likely in 2026, will dictate the trajectory of infrastructure investments, public transit options, and ultimately, the way residents move around the county. A progressive plan could usher in a new era of clean mobility, while a more conservative one could lock the county into cars and sprawl.
Also vital are the upcoming decisions on the Friant areas and the industrial park. According to a recent state report, California needs to dramatically curb sprawl development – long the hallmark of California’s growth – to meet the state’s climate change goals.
Brandau said the county, as a planning exercise, is “doing all of the proper zoning and planning” to hit the targets hypothetically – but was glib about whether the county intended to follow through on them.
“Those targets don’t have a lot of teeth to them. All the state is requiring is that we create a plan that shows that we have the targets in mind,” Brandau said. “Now, if the state moves to the next level, then Fresno County is going to have to figure out how we get to the next level.”
Bredefeld, who doubts whether climate change is truly human-caused, said there were “many, many, many, much more important things to address” than climate change. Instead of meeting the IPCC’s targets, he suggested the county make businesses greener whenever possible.
“I just believe things happen naturally,” he said about the climate. “You know, the climate changes. We all know that it’s been doing it for centuries.”
Herrera, however, said that the climate change deadlines should not be shrugged off.
“I do believe we should follow the IPCC. There’s just a pattern of this government tending to go in the opposite direction of what the state and federal government is saying,” he said.
To Dictos, he said meeting the IPCC’s deadlines was hopeless for Fresno County.
“It’s impossible,” Dictos said. “It’s a pipe dream. We need oil to run this county.”
Who is funding the candidates’ campaigns?
Bredefeld has been a fundraising powerhouse, raising nearly $1 million for this campaign since 2021, compared to Brandau’s nearly $300,000.
Click on the graphic below to explore more of the campaign contributions.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the opponent criticized by candidate Dion Bourdase regarding road maintenance. The story has been corrected.
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