Will the Fresno County Board of Supervisors – a quietly powerful public agency with a $5 billion annual budget – be shaken up this November?
Two Fresno City Councilmembers are promising just that, in their challenges against longtime incumbents Sal Quintero and Steve Brandau, who represent the two urban supervisor districts in a county of 1.1 million people.
But while both challengers, Luis Chavez and Garry Bredefeld, have promised a more aggressive, fiery approach to governance – as opposed to the current board, where there’s more consensus than not – their policy positions on many issues, from homelessness to economic development to public health or the culture wars – make it more difficult to distinguish the candidates.
And there’s a lot at stake in the coming years, from addressing a growing homelessness crisis to solidifying the city-county tax-sharing agreement, to figuring out how to pay to fix the county’s deteriorating roads.
