Change coming to Fresno County Board of Supervisors as challengers oust incumbents | Opinion
Times are a-changin' on the Fresno County Board of Supervisors.
Not since 1996, and only two times since 1980, has an incumbent Fresno County supervisor lost a reelection bid.
In Tuesday's general election, the practically unheard of happened twice. In the two county supervisorial districts that encompass most of Fresno, a majority of voters shook up the status quo by casting their ballots for the two challengers.
Given that Garry Bredefeld and Luis Chavez have both been members of the Fresno City Council for multiple terms, the Fresno County Board of Supervisors will have an unfamiliar-but-familiar look in January.
Bredefeld held a sizable margin over incumbent Steve Brandau with 55.79% of the vote compared to Brandau's 43.71% in initial returns provided by the Fresno County Clerk/Registrar of Voters, proving his strong showing in March was a harbinger of things to come.
Chavez, meanwhile, led incumbent Sal Quintero 54.45% to 45.15% in District 3 – an apparent reversal of the primary result .
While neither Bredefeld nor Chavez declared victory Tuesday night, both sounded confident it was only a matter of time.
"It says people want real change at the Board of Supervisors," Bredefeld said during his election night party at Pardini's Red Room. "I think it speaks to the fact that the city gets things done, and people want to bring that to the county."
Unless there's a massive reversal among the final batches of votes, Bredefeld and Chavez will become the first challengers to defeat a sitting Fresno County supervisor since 1996 when Juan Arambula bested Doug Vagim. Eight years earlier, in 1988, Vagim himself unseated Betty Ramacher.
Until Tuesday, those were the only two instances since 1980 of an incumbent losing a bid for reelection, according to county voting records.
Same majority but new makeup
Even though the Board retains its 3-2 Republican majority with Bredefeld supplanting a fellow Republican and Chavez replacing a fellow Democrat, the new makeup could lead to a seismic shift on several key issues .
Which is something organized labor, in particular, is counting on after employee unions poured tens of thousands into both winning campaigns.
Chavez received his largest single contribution – $25,000 – from the SEIU Cal State Council for Working People and $6,740 more from SEIU Local 2015, the chapter that represents 23,000 home healthcare workers who have unsuccessfully lobbied county leaders for pay increases for more than a year.
Besides monetary donations, SEIU Local 2015 funded campaign mailers portraying Quintero as "asleep at the wheel" and absent from meetings while members manned phone banks and sent mass text messages on Chavez's behalf.
While the votes were still being counted, Chavez paid a visit to the labor union's election night party to thank members for their support.
"I owe them something that the current Board of Supervisors did not give them, and that's treating them with dignity and respect," said Chavez, whose mother was an SEIU Local 2015 member. "When you have incumbents who refuse to even meet with them and discuss working conditions and compensation, I think that's a big slap in the face and a big reason why you saw labor coalesce around me."
Organized labor's backing of Chavez isn't surprising considering his track record and stated support for a project labor agreement policy for county public works contracts, similar to the one he helped approve for the City of Fresno in 2021.
Labor groups 'gamble' on Bredefeld
By contrast, Bredefeld was the lone council member to vote against the project labor agreement. Despite that, he still garnered a $30,000 contribution from the SEIU Local 2015.
Dillon Savory, executive director of the Central Labor Council, which represents 50 unions and 105,000 workers in Fresno, Madera, Tulare, and Kings counties, said the SEIU chapter took "a gamble" on Bredefeld based on his dealings with the city's police, firefighters, bus drivers and airport workers.
"If you remove all the political stuff and look at his track record with the city ... Garry is clearly going to be better than Steve on these issues," Savory said. "Brandau has zero track record of supporting unions. He doesn't agree that people deserve wage increases that are collectively bargained."
Bredefeld said he didn't promise the labor unions a pay raise – only that he would listen to their concerns. Which is more than Brandau or Quintero have apparently been willing to do.
"The old way of doing things is not going to fly anymore," Bredefeld said. "This good ol' boys club where they all march in the same way, where they spend half an hour on a budget and restrict public comment to 15 minutes on important issues, that's not going to happen any longer."
Like Bredefeld, Chavez said he won't hesitate to upend the established order.
"At the end of the day I don't owe anything to any of the current supervisors," Chavez said. "They didn't support me – they supported Sal – and that's a great position to be in because my only responsibility will be to the residents of District 3."
