Documented by Rachel Youdelman
What you need to know
- Despite hearing strong objections from members of the public, including prominent community leaders, the board unanimously approved an update to the county’s general plan. The update allows for massive real estate development in rural areas, and entails changes that could eliminate environmental protection zones for rivers and wildlife and scuttle the state’s goals for reducing greenhouse gases.
- In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) workers employed by the county were present to ask for a raise in wages from the supervisors, who act as the IHSS governing board. Workers asked for $20 per hour and health insurance. There are about 18,000 IHSS workers in Fresno County, and they are caregivers for about 23,000 disabled and elderly people.
Board
Brian Pacheco, 1st District
Steve Brandau, 2nd District
Sal Quintero, 3rd District
Buddy Mendes, 4th District, vice chair
Nathan Magsig, 5th District, chair
Staff
Daniel Cederborg, county counsel
Bernice Seidel, clerk of the Board of Supervisors
Paul Nerland, County Administrative Officer (CAO)
The scene
The Fresno County Board of Supervisors held its second meeting of the month at 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 20.
Magsig opened the meeting promptly. Roll call inspired a couple of quips: Brandau was “not missing,” and Mendes was “I think I’m here.” The public portion of the meeting was 2½ hours long, and was followed by a closed session.
The invocation as usual was made by an evangelical Christian; this time it was Siaki-Sean Samuelu, area representative of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). Magsig said that the FCA’s “vision” was to “see the world transformed by Jesus Christ,” to “lead every coach and athlete into a relationship with Christ,” and to ensure that they “demonstrate steadfast commitment to Jesus Christ.”
Samuelu improvised a prayer, repeating the phrase “Father God” multiple times and concluding “in the name of Jesus,” followed without a break by the flag salute.
Meetings are open to the public and are held at the Fresno County Hall of Records, 2281 Tulare St., Room 301. Public comments on matters on or off the agenda are welcomed. If you plan to make a comment in person on an item not on the agenda, note that this portion of the meeting is always last on the agenda. Each agenda item is otherwise accorded time for live public comment as they are introduced. Meetings are live streamed; agendas, live stream and meeting video may be accessed here. The next regular meeting is scheduled for March 5 at 9:30 a.m.
Each supervisor represents one of five districts. Who is your county supervisor? Find out here.
To contact your supervisor about any issues or agenda items for a particular meeting, call or email with your opinion or question:
Pacheco District 1 District1@fresnocountyca.gov 559-600-1000
Brandau District 2 District2@fresnocountyca.gov 559-600-2000
Quintero District 3 District3@fresnocountyca.gov 559-600-3000
Mendes District 4 District4@fresnocountyca.gov 559-600-4000
Magsig District 5 District5@fresnocountyca.gov-559-600-5000
Agenda item 1 The board approved the day’s agenda 5-0.
Agenda item 2 The consent agenda, items 14-38 on Tuesday’s agenda, includes items considered routine or administrative, grouped together and decided with a single vote; however, supervisors or members of the public may pull an item for discussion. No items were pulled; the agenda passed 5-0.
Agenda item 3 The board unanimously approved a stand-alone tax-sharing agreement with the city of Fresno regarding an infill building project on Bullard Avenue between Maroa and Winchester avenues. The owners of the property want to build duplexes there.
Assistant Director of the Department of Public Works and Planning Bernard Jimenez answered the board’s questions. Was it a “one-off” project, and did it meet the city’s requirements? Yes; and yes, it did. Pacheco said he was OK with this project since it was not a developer’s; it was a “mom and pop situation,” as Mendes phrased it.
Agenda item 4 The board unanimously agreed to pay In-Home Supportive Services Advisory Committee members a stipend of $50 for attending monthly meetings. Director of the Department of Social Services Sanja Bugay was present to explain that an incentive was needed to encourage participation, and longtime committee member Diana Kenderian, a wheelchair user, explained that many committee members were disabled, making transportation to meetings difficult. The stipend would help, she said.
Agenda item 5 The board unanimously agreed to accept a report, an actuarial valuation by the Segal Group, Inc., regarding the Fresno County Employees’ Retirement Association (FCERA). Donald Kendig, FCERA’s administrator, was present to give a brief presentation.
Kendig explained the variations in percentages of employer contributions and gains and losses in investment portfolios. Magsig called the management of the funds “prudent,” and took the opportunity to wield phrases such as “unfunded liability,” “net position,” “assumed rate of return,” “volatility in the markets” and the like, without adding further substance to Kendig’s report. Magsig is an appointed member of the Fresno County Board of Retirement.
Agenda item 6 After hearing from 13 members of the public, many of whom are leaders in the community, about their opposition to a resolution to update the Fresno County General Plan — changes which could eliminate environmental protection zones for rivers and wildlife prior to approval for development — the board unanimously approved the update. Several members of the public who spoke mentioned that they had also submitted formal letters outlining their objections.
Jimenez, Will Kettler, and Chris Motta of the Public Works Department gave a presentation about the changes, which will entail rezoning to enable new residential or industrial development in rural areas, such as a 700-acre luxury-home development along the Kings River, a 500-acre development north of the Copper River and an industrial park in south-central Fresno, per a Fresnoland report.
Public commenters and staff seemed to be talking about two different things, with staff and supervisors speaking in broad terms and minimizing issues of concern, while commenters raised specific topics and misgivings. For example, Fresno’s Director of Planning and Development Jennifer Clark said that some of the new plans lacked “legal enforceability.” But Jimenez said that his office was in touch with state officials, and that every proposed change was in compliance with state law. Why did their perspectives differ so much?
Jimenez further said that he had heard no objections from the state attorney general, and an outside lawyer, Sarah Owsowitz, spoke via Zoom in the county’s defense, affirming that the proposal was “defensible.” She summarized concerns as though they required a legal defense: “Mitigation measures are detailed; they disclose the impacts that are unavoidable in a programmatic project of this size.”
Sue Buckley, president of the Kings River Conservancy, said that a Kings River regional plan needed to be revised (the latest dates from 1979), and cited recent river deaths and flooding. Kent Kinney of the Kings River Trust reiterated the need for an update to the 1970 plan, and suggested a one-to-one standard: for every 100 acres developed, 100 acres of land conserved. Mariana Alvarenga of the Leadership Counsel said that rather than building a new industrial park along the Kings River, the county should invest in what she called “historically disinvested communities,” such as Cantua Creek, Lanare, Tombstone and more, for which she and others have been advocating for decades. Yet Brandau in response merely remarked that he wanted to avoid building too close to the riverbank.
Brandau further said that “the media and other folks” were talking about an “industrial park,” but he said that it and other development proposals were not yet “projects”— they were only “study areas.” What steps, he asked, would be needed to proceed with the industrial park “concept”? Jimenez said a general plan amendment and an additional environmental review would be needed as well as another presentation to the board, thus making the update proposal generally sound benign.
Others board comments also seemed to align with an impulse to smooth over the anxieties expressed by members of the public who showed up to comment. Quintero said he received comments from constituents about concerns regarding the effects of development on air quality, infrastructure and water — were these issues addressed in the proposed changes? Jimenez, attempting to neutralize these concerns as well, said they were, up until 2042. Some environmental impacts could not be mitigated, he conceded, but the general plan was “not a stagnant document”— it would come back to the board annually.
Jimenez added that some sites needed to be rezoned because the state is “aggressive with housing mandates” and that state recommendations and local conservation “don’t always align.” Effectively, he seemed to be saying that the county was forced to rezone on a wide scale to accommodate housing, but the discussion didn’t in the least focus on affordable housing or address the housing shortage. Rather, Brandau said that “things happen, and we have to make adjustments,” explaining that it was the county’s duty to provide a “variety” or menu of interesting places for people to live in a variety of county locations, because not everybody wanted to live in the same kind of housing, and they could not “force” all the development within the city of Fresno.
Other members of the public, such as Jennifer Cruz, manager of the Fresno EOC LGBTQ+ Resource Center and a candidate in the March 2024 election for the District 5 seat occupied by Magsig, said she was “sure this morning’s push for passing the general plan is not an attempt to rush it before the March 5 primary elections to satisfy those developers who may or may not contribute to your campaigns,” suggesting, of course, that it was.
Daniel O’Connell of the Fresno branch of the Sierra Club said there were “moral and ethical” issues raised by the board’s plans, and questioned “in whose benefit” the plan was designed. O’Connell cited the Feb. 19 Fresnoland article, detailing the many public concerns about the impending vote, including potential profits that real estate developers stand to gain.
Sprawl, lost agricultural land, threatened wildlife habitat, increased greenhouse emissions, water concerns and windfall benefits to developers summarized concerns raised by members of the public.
Agenda item 7 Supervisor reports
Quintero mentioned the death of former Fresno Police Officer Bill Biggers, who at 102 was the oldest retired police officer in the state.
Magsig said that he was in Washington, D.C., for a meeting of the National Associations of Counties along with CAO Nerland. Magsig had an “incredible” discussion about the Inflation Reduction Act and learned that tax refunds could be due to the county. Magsig said he felt that the national debt was very high. Mendes, spontaneously responding to Magsig’s comment about the national debt, uttered a one-sentence bromide, as he is wont to do: “When are they going to run the hell out of the money-printing machine?”
No one else had anything to report.
Agenda item 8 Supervisor appointments. Mendes and Pacheco each made appointments of constituents to different local committees such as cemetery boards, arts councils and the like.
Agenda item 9 Public comment about issues that are not on the day’s agenda. There were many SEIU2015 union members in purple T-shirts bearing the union logo, but because the matter they were there to address was on the closed-session agenda, they were asked to wait to comment.
Two people were present to comment. The first was Dion Bourdase, who is a candidate for the District 2 seat now occupied by Brandau in the March 5 election. Bourdase said that last year he filed a “26-page grievance” with “100 pages of irrefutable evidence” alleging that the county was in violation of civil service employment statutes. He said that members of the Civil Service Commission were serving, although their terms had expired. This commission called him a “vexatious litigant,” he said, though it wasn’t clear if he had filed litigation or just a complaint. Why were his concerns not being addressed? He waited silently for an answer, then castigated the board for not responding. “Your silence is deafening!” he said.
He then asked the board to make a motion on the matter. After he left the lectern, Magsig reminded everyone that public meeting statutes preclude the board from taking action on matters that are not on the agenda.
The next speaker gave her name as Mary Helen Lopez. She held aloft what she said was her paycheck, calling it “zero” and ripping it up. The name “Mary Helen Lopez” appeared on a list of people who had filed to run for the District 5 seat now held by Magsig.
Agenda items 10-13 Closed session. Item 13 concerned salary negotiation for county In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) workers. The board governs such negotiations on behalf of county IHSS workers, who have for months been appearing before the board during public comment periods to plead for a raise in wages. Eleven IHSS workers were present to ask again. As they have mentioned at past meetings, even fast-food workers earn more in hourly wages than they do, and they save the county millions of dollars by allowing disabled people to remain in their own homes and receive care there rather than becoming wards of the county.
Some IHSS workers are caregivers for their own family members. Rodney Lewis said he takes care of his daughter who is a paraplegic and is now 39 years old. “I clean bottoms, I clean fronts, I do it all,” he said, while living at the poverty level. The current IHSS salary is about $15.83, and workers are asking for $20 per hour, which is the current rate for fast-food workers. Irene Green, an IHSS worker from “old Fresno,” pointed out that their poverty was observable, that you didn’t see them with manicured nails and that “us womens don’t get our hair did” [sic].
Several commenters expressed anxiety about losing health insurance, rumored to be on the chopping block in exchange for a higher hourly rate.
County counsel Cederborg confirmed that there would be no announcements following the closed session, so Magsig adjourned the public portion of the meeting at noon.
If you believe anything in these notes is inaccurate, please email us at fresnodocs@fresnoland.org with “Correction Request” in the subject line.
