Candidates line up to fill an open Fresno City Council seat. Who’s planning to run?
As Fresno City Councilmember Luis Chavez prepares to join the Fresno County Board of Supervisors next month, a line is forming by candidates for an upcoming special election to fill his unexpired District 5 term representing southeast Fresno.
Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas, a Fresno Unified School District trustee who is also married to Chavez, and southeast Fresno economic development advocate Jose Leon Barraza have both declared their intentions to run in a March 18 special election.
Jonasson Rosas was re-elected in November to a third four-year term on the Fresno Unified board representing the Roosevelt High School area in southeast Fresno. Barraza, who is the CEO of an organization promoting improvements in southeast Fresno, has run three previous times for the City Council post.
Chavez is leaving the City Council in the middle of his term after defeating incumbent Fresno County Supervisor Sal Quintero to represent southeast and southwest Fresno on the Board of Supervisors. The filing period to pull nomination papers for the special election begins Wednesday (Dec. 18) and continues through 5 p.m. Friday.
Candidates must be registered voters in the district and residents of District 5 for at least 30 days before filing nomination papers.
Jonasson Rosas has a master’s degree in business administration from Fresno State and has served on the Fresno Unified board since 2016. She is the deputy general manager for external affairs for the Westlands Water District, and previously worked for the Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission and the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
“As a foster parent, nonprofit volunteer, business leader and school board member, I have worked tirelessly to serve the most disadvantaged neighborhoods of Fresno,” Jonasson Rosas said when she announced her City Council candidacy. “I’m ready to take that same passion and commitment to City Hall.”
She added that she wants to address issues including homelessness, housing, public safety and economic development.
“I’m proud to represent a good portion of the council area on the school board,” Jonasson Rosas told The Bee earlier this month. “If the voters are so willing, I’ll be proud to represent the district in a new capacity on the City Council.”
She said she did not believe voters would see her decision to run for the City Council — only a day after her reelection to the school board was finalized — as a matter of political opportunism. “Of course, it will be up to the will of the voters,” Jonasson Rosas said.
Barraza is the CEO of the Southeast Fresno Community Economic Development Association and a member of the city’s Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission. He previously worked as Fresno County’s director of economic development and as a principal administrative analyst, concluding a 34-year career with the county when he retired in 2009.
“I intend to run a grassroots campaign built on my extensive interaction with residents and small business owners who are grateful for my involvement in solving community issues,” Barraza said in his announcement. “I would like to continue to play that role at the council level.”
He cited public safety, jobs and economic growth, housing and better parks and soccer fields as issues he wants to highlight in his campaign.
It will not be Barraza’s first venture into politics, having run three previous times for the City Council seat. In 2010, Quintero was elected to the council, defeating both Chavez and Barraza. Barraza also lost bids in 2016, when Chavez was first elected to fill a two-year vacancy, and in 2018, when Chavez was elected to a full four-year term.
For years, Barraza has championed the development of a regional park and soccer complex at Peach and Butler avenues in southeast Fresno for which construction is expected in 2025.
He is also an advocate for the adoption by the City Council of land-use plans covering south-central and southeast Fresno.
“Without these plans it’s very difficult to have an economic development program and job creation features,” Barraza told the City Council on Dec. 12 as he urged speedy consideration of the plans. “We need a strategy to address the problems of poverty that we have in southeast Fresno.”
This story was originally published December 17, 2024 at 5:30 AM.
