Former Fresno Mayor Dale Doig, who appeared on miniseries ‘Fresno,’ dies at age 86
Former Fresno mayor Dale Doig, who died earlier this month, is being remembered by the people around him as a kind, intelligent and curious man.
He was 86.
Doig was a teacher and avid outdoorsman who served 11 years on the Fresno City Council and four years as mayor in the late 1980s.
He also had a brief appearance playing himself as mayor on the TV miniseries “Fresno” with Carol Burnett.
He died peacefully Feb. 10 surrounded by family, after years of declining health related to cancer treatment decades ago, said his daughter, Lisa Carrera.
Doig, originally from Southern California, grew up spending summers in Yosemite National Park with his park ranger father. He was also a California State Junior College wrestling champion.
Family remember him as an intensely kind and smart man.
“If anybody in the family needed anything, you would ask him one time and he would help you out,” said Doig’s brother-in-law, Stephen Fletcher. Fletcher’s sister Cecelia “Sally” Doig was married to Doig for 58 years before she died.
The couple met on a blind date set up by a fraternity brother at Fresno State because before becoming a politician, Doig was actually a bit shy, Carrera said.
She said her father always stressed the importance of voting and education.
“My dad always encouraged my intelligence,” she said.
Her parents showed an unconditional love that she said she learned later in life wasn’t always the norm in all families.
“This last five years has probably been the sweetest because I got to know him in a much different way,” she said. “I really learned how sweet he was.”
Along with his wife, Doig was preceded in death by his son, Kenneth Doig.
In addition to daughter Carrera and son-in-law Michael Carrera, he is survived by grandsons Brandon and Nicholas Carrera, and four great-grandsons.
After years of teaching, Doig was elected to the City Council, where he served from 1973 to 1984. He was mayor from 1985 to 1989.
He told The Bee in 1989 that his biggest accomplishment was leading the drive to get enough signatures to put the repeal of the city utility tax on the ballot. They voted to repeal it in 1981.
He always voted his conscious, even when it may have lost him supporters, his daughter said.
“He was a man of principles,” she said.
But like many politicians, he did not emerge from a career in politics without controversy.
Author and journalist Mark Arax wrote about Doig in two of his books and was also a friend through his former in-laws.
He told The Bee that Doig was “anti-sprawl” when he first ran for office. But by the end of his political career, Doig was “pro development” and criticized for being too cozy with developers.
Doig’s career got rocky when, as mayor, The Bee reported that Doig had a political and personal friendship with a convicted cocaine dealer.
Despite Arax’s writings, Doig didn’t hold a grudge and invited him fishing near Bass Lake.
In an example of how intellectually curious Doig was, Arax remembers the pair bumping through the forest in Doig’s Toyota RAV4 when they ran across some men cooking meth and holding shotguns.
“I said, ‘Dale, that’s a meth lab, man,’” Arax said. “He goes, ‘Oh, that’s fascinating.”
At first, Doig wanted to learn more about what they were doing, Arax said.
Then he wanted to give the men a lecture about how they were defiling sacred land, before realizing the danger and turning around the vehicle, Arax said.
Doig was an avid fisherman who tied his own flies. He and his wife lived in Bass Lake for years after leaving Fresno. Doig returned to Fresno for care later in life.
Oh, and that appearance on the “Fresno” miniseries?
He had two lines, playing himself as mayor, Carrera said. He got his own trailer for the brief appearance.
“It was really cute,” she said. “He was dancing with Carol Burnett.”
