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ENDORSEMENTS: We’re endorsing fresh ideas in Fresno’s 4 historic city council races

As The Fresno Bee Editorial Board considered four historic city council primaries, we were encouraged by the opportunity for voters to consider fresh faces and new approaches.

It’s definitely a moment geared for change with only one incumbent running out of the 20 candidates across the four races, districts 1, 3, 5 and 7. And the lone incumbent, Brandon Vang, won a special election to finish a partial term only 13 months ago.

So many key city policies or plans are in need of revision or wholesale change that we’re endorsing candidates who might bring fresh eyes to the analyses and also have at least some leadership/government experience.

New blood allows for do-overs on problematic policies without the usual political reprisal, such as the city’s anti-camping ordinance or economic development policy that lately has inspired more battle lines than consensus.

Here’s where City Council candidates stand on SEDA, Fresno’s massive development plan

In this last example, we’re of course talking about SEDA, the mega-development nearly every candidate says they won’t support as is, but maybe they will, in the future if it’s changed. Hardly courageous positions.

We’ve heard that city elections this year are “really” about SEDA, but with little to separate many of the candidates, we’ve largely set aside that debate in our endorsement calculus.

We decided to isolate some other issues we feel are important and pressure tested some of the platforms.

Read about our plans for a community editorial board

Here’s where we stand

Anti-camping ordinance: We believe the general idea of incentivizing some homeless people into treatment and transitional housing is laudable, but making arrests with diversion into treatment has failed, the numbers show. The ordinance, however well-intentioned, just isn’t working. It needs to be rethought.

High-Speed Rail: We believe the project is vitally important for Fresno, which is slated to be home to the first station. The station would spur economic activity and growth, and it could connect the Central Valley with the coast in positive ways we can’t yet imagine.

Soccer stadium: We believe that downtown needs to be smartly reinvigorated and that a new soccer stadium using an innovative public-private financing model could work to boost economic activity downtown and leverage soccer’s popularity in the community. A new stadium also could spur potential development in Chinatown, which is sorely in need of more private investment beyond property speculation.

Image work: We believe that Fresno has been poorly marketed to outsiders by our local and state leaders and that they need to work harder to fight the negative stereotypes about Fresno, the fifth-largest city in California. We’d be looking for councilmembers to advocate for smart marketing plans to change the narrative and attract more outside interest and investment.

With these issues in mind, we are ultimately judging candidates on whether they have a fresh perspective and enough practical leadership experience to do the job. Councilmembers with some combination of those two attributes are what the city needs right now.

The editorial board – with help from several community advisors – offers these endorsements. Click on the links for more details.

After the primary, we’ll expand the community editorial board so we can offer endorsements in more races in the November general election and offer recommendations on important non-electoral issues.

If a candidate wins at least 50 percent plus one vote in the primary, they win the seat. In a runoff scenario, the top two vote-getters in the primary advance to the November contest.

With crowded fields in wide-open Fresno city council and county supervisor races, there’ll likely be several runoffs in the general election.

Candidate forum videos

We invited the candidates from each of the four city council races to candidate forums that we recorded and that you can find below. We encourage voters and everyone to watch and listen to truly understand the candidates’ positions on issues important to Fresno’s present and future.

This story was originally published May 7, 2026 at 10:59 AM.

Profile Image of Christopher Kirkpatrick
Christopher Kirkpatrick
The Fresno Bee
Christopher Kirkpatrick is senior editor of The Fresno Bee and Vida en el Valle.
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