What this means:
The Fresno County Board of Supervisors is well on their way to installing two new guardrails to how the county departments spend their resources on non-scheduled holidays and celebrations.
Last month, board oversight was added to how departments spend their discretionary funds. The board is now positioned to force departments to get majority approval before officially participating in celebrations and holidays beyond their schedule.
The days of Fresno County department staff celebrating non-scheduled holidays could soon come to an end following Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting.
In a 3-2 vote, supervisors directed staff to come back at a later meeting with a formal resolution forcing departments to receive board approval before officially participating in select holidays and celebrations across Fresno County.
The new policy has yet to be fully fleshed out, but early draft language requires departments to request board approval for formal participation in celebrations up to a year in advance.
“If we do not do that, then you don’t get free range to promote some gender ideology, political ideology just because you like it…the buck stops here,” said vice board chair Garry Bredefeld.
Bredefeld, who has largely spearheaded these policy changes during his freshman term, said the proposal is a move toward the county taking a more apolitical approach to how it engages with its community. The issue stems from Bredefeld’s disagreements with county staff using taxpayer money — about $5,000, he said at a June board meeting — to disburse items like condoms and lubricant at this year’s Pride Month festivities.
Board Chair Buddy Mendes and Supervisor Nathan Magsig joined Bredefeld in approving the policy. Supervisors Luis Chavez and Brian Pacheco dissented.
Chavez said he did not support the proposal due to concerns that the policy could open the county up to discrimination claims if the board expresses preference for some holidays and celebrations.
He added that county staff are “trained and capable” in deciding which celebrations are most appropriate with their office’s goals in serving their community. While listing off examples of past department participation in community events, Chavez said, “I don’t think our colleagues got it wrong.”
Pacheco added that while he may not always agree with the events county staff choose to participate in, that ultimately they are more informed than the board. Before making his “no” vote, he questioned whether the move was as apolitical as it seems on paper.
“We should be neutral and not political,” Pacheco said, “and this (policy change) reaches over to political.”
The board did not say when the county administrative office will return with the final drafted policy.
Tuesday’s vote follows a trend the board has taken this summer to add more guardrails to how their departments choose to use county resources on local community celebrations.
For years, department heads had the authority to spend their discretionary funds and staff on community events and celebrations they felt aligned with their office’s goals. Now both participation in celebrations and the use of those funds will be under board scrutiny.
Tuesday’s hearing saw multiple speakers for public comment, with most voicing opposition to the proposal.
Russ Zokaites, an assistant professor of music at Fresno State, came with his husband and adopted son to the board’s chambers to oppose Tuesday’s proposal and last month’s department spending policy change.
“It would directly affect our family, especially with the intended purposes that I don’t think are written into the actual policy,” Zokaites said.
“I think it’s really important that we maintain the mission of the county, of being open and diverse and accepting of everyone,” he later added.
Leading up to Tuesday’s hearing, Bredefeld has also made clear that he opposes the prominence of Pride and LGBTQ+ displays in areas like Fresno County Library buildings. The new policy would require county staff to seek approval before erecting similar displays in the following years.
Bredefeld, also a retired clinical psychologist, has denied claims from LGBTQ+ advocates who say the new policy would censor LGBTQ+ literature and materials, saying that the books will remain in those libraries for those who wish to read them.
He added Tuesday that practices like “gender affirming care,” “the stupidity of people coming up with their own pronouns,” and “men playing in women’s sports” are symptomatic of local governments trying to “normalizes this insanity.”
“It is my belief that this board…needs to stop allowing this divisive and political ideology to be celebrated within any county department,” Bredefeld said.
Tammy McMahon Gorans, a local elementary school teacher who said she has been an educator for 39 years, was the lone public speaker to voice support for the policy at Tuesday’s hearing. McMahon Gorans also listed herself in the recent Mahmoud v. Taylor supreme court case — where the court decided public schools must allow parents to opt their children out of curriculum and materials that infringe on their religious beliefs.
McMahon Gorans said that the policy was needed to prevent local children from becoming like Chloe Cole — a Central Valley native who began transitioning at the age of 12 before saying she regretted the decision at the age of 17 and began “detransitioning”.
She has since become an advocate against the experience for minors and has spoken out against gender-affirming care for minors on Fox News and, earlier this year, at Fresno State in an event sponsored by Charlie Kirk’s schools-focused conservative political action committee Turning Point USA.
Cole’s public views on gender-affirming care for minors run contrary to the views of major medical associations, including the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Medical Society, among many others.
“Please support Supervisor Bredefeld in controlling where our money goes, to support what events,” McMahon Gorans said, “and if they do not protect the innocence of our kids, let’s not do it.”
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