What's at stake?
After not speaking to Fresnoland for its investigation into Fresno city leaders handing out contracts to the same consultants over and over again, Luis Chavez broke his silence after it was published in an interview with Fresnoland.
After months of not speaking with Fresnoland about city contracts, former city councilmember and Fresno County Supervisor Luis Chavez broke his silence.
After Fresnoland published its two-part investigation on Jan. 7 into city leaders’ use of a policy “loophole” to hand out dozens of contracts worth $100,000 or less, Chavez spoke to Fresnoland over the phone about how and why he handed out city contracts to political consultant Alex Tavlian’s company.
Chavez said it shouldn’t have taken the City of Fresno eight months to provide Fresnoland invoice and payment records with Tavlian’s Local Government Strategic Consulting.
“No, I think they should be divulged quickly,” Chavez told Fresnoland. “At the end of the day, this isn’t anybody’s money — this is taxpayer money.”
Five of the seven current councilmembers spoke with Fresnoland in its investigation and said they’d supported reforming the City of Fresno’s transparency regarding all no-bid contracts, not just the ones worth $100,000 or less.
At a news conference last week, Councilmember Brandon Vang said he was “appalled that it took an outside investigation to bring this issue to light,” in reference to Fresnoland’s two-part accountability probe.
Here are five things Chavez said in response to Fresnoland’s investigation.
1. Chavez says he was never advised against giving multiple contracts to Tavlian’s company
The City of Fresno has a policy on contracts worth more than $100,000: They must be approved by the Fresno City Council. However, if they’re worth $100,000 or less, they don’t get city council scrutiny, and are effectively undisclosed to the public.
One outstanding question: Can a city leader hand out two $100,000 contracts to the same consultant in a single year? One city councilmember told Fresnoland there’s a “loophole” in city policy that doesn’t expressly bar that from happening.
During the 2025 fiscal year, Chavez’s former council office gave Tavlian’s consulting company two $100,000 contracts — one in July 2024 and another in December 2024.
Chavez told Fresnoland that he was never legally advised by the City Attorney’s Office against giving Tavlian’s company that second December 2024 contract worth $100,000 — three weeks before Chavez was sworn in as a county supervisor and left his city council seat.
“I don’t recall receiving any legal advice,” Chavez told Fresnoland. “And you know that by the way that it was signed off by our legal folks.”
Chavez and Tavlian’s signatures were on each of their contracts over the years. So were signatures from either City Attorney Andrew Janz or senior attorneys from his office.
Additionally, Chavez said that invoices from and payments to Tavlian’s consulting company were all vetted by the City of Fresno’s finance department.
“Those get forwarded to our finance department that then scrutinizes them,” Chavez said.
2. Chavez defends using taxpayer dollars for ads while running for county office
In the lead up to the November 2024 election, former city councilmember Chavez’s payments to Tavlian’s consulting company peaked, right as he was simultaneously running for county supervisor.
Chavez paid Tavlian’s consulting company $99,999.99 for constituent outreach services.
He also paid the consultant another $31,042.36 in city tax dollars for Facebook ads.
Chavez defended it, saying he accomplished a lot of work as a councilmember, and that money needed to be spent so that Fresno residents could know about what he did.
“No, I don’t think it’s a lot (of money), just given what was going on at the time,” Chavez said, referring to the work he got done on the city level.
He said councilmembers are allowed to send out advertisements and materials touting the work they do.
“For me, in my case, that’s part of my job,” Chavez said. “There’s no way for me to separate my role as a council member and a candidate, oftentimes, with regards to how you message, right?”
Chavez said that, no matter what he does, members of the public will always question whether he’s doing things for Fresno residents or doing it for publicity to get votes.
“That’s actually not uncommon,” Chavez said of using taxpayer dollars on ads. “It’s actually very common.”
While Tavlian’s Local Government Strategic Consulting was doing Facebook ads for Chavez, one of Tavlian’s other companies, Park West Associates, sent out attack mailers for a political action committee disparaging Chavez’s only political opponent in the county district 3 race, incumbent Sal Quintero.
When asked if he could see how it appears — that two of Tavlian’s companies were paid to do work that could be seen as advantageous for him — Chavez said he couldn’t see what conclusions there are to draw.
He said he had no idea that Tavlian’s Park West Associates sent out mailers attacking Quintero, his only political opponent. Chavez also said he didn’t know what the October 2024 mailers contained.
“I can’t control what people do on their own time, and I don’t know what he did, to be quite honest.”
3. Chavez says he never had ‘an army of staffers’
Chavez acknowledged to Fresnoland that most other councilmembers have a staff that takes care of constituent services and community outreach. He added that during his eight years on the Fresno City Council, he didn’t hire a staffer for that.
“I chose not to do that because I didn’t know how much I was going to be using those individuals,” Chavez said. “So that’s why I decided to enter into that contract with LGSC, which is what they do.”
Chavez used city dollars to hire the outside consultant — paying $16,666 a month for PR and advertising — the monthly rate of $200,000 annually.
Chavez said that when he was on the city council, he had a staff of three people — two full time and one part time.
“I’ve never had an army of staffers that were hired to do work in my office,” Chavez said.
4. What was Tavlian doing for $16,666 a month?
Although Tavlian’s company was billing Chavez’s office for constituent outreach, Chavez confirmed to Fresnoland that the consultant was actually doing public relations and advertising.
Chavez didn’t share any specifics on the work the company performed, and said he would have to go back and look at the invoices.
When asked why he was paying a consultant at the rate of $200,000 annually for doing PR and advertising, he said the public shouldn’t be worried about it.
“I mean, quite honestly, I mean, it’s part of the cost that you do to make sure you do community outreach,” Chavez said.
Chavez added that it was never discussed — and he didn’t even know — that the total he ended up paying for Tavlian’s constituent outreach services, using taxpayer dollars, was $99,999.99.
5. Chavez says the City of Fresno should be more transparent with its contracts
Chavez said the City of Fresno should make its contracts more transparent and accessible to the public moving forward.
“I mean, everything should be available to the public, Chavez said. “And I have a very simple rule like anything to do with public taxpayer dollars will be available to the public.”
