When Fresno’s Politician Who Cried Wolf raises legitimate questions, few care to hear
Ever hear the story about the Politician Who Cried Wolf?
It involves a city councilmember who spends his time grandstanding and wagging unsubstantiated fingers at political foes. His outcries are so frequent and delivered with such vitriol that most people stop taking what he says seriously and simply tune him out. So when the day finally arrives that his accusations carry some merit, it’s too late. Hardly anyone pays attention.
In fact, this is more than some apocryphal tale. That story is being played out in real life, right here in California’s fifth-largest city, with Fresno City Councilmember Garry Bredefeld playing the titular character.
Unlike so many previous press conferences and scheduled rants, this time Bredefeld brought receipts to back up his assertions of fraud and corruption. The representative for District 6 distributed hundreds of pages of invoices detailing charges racked up by fellow councilmembers Nelson Esparza, Tyler Maxwell, Esmeralda Soria and Miguel Arias (a quartet he refers to as the “gang of four”) to credit cards linked to their districts’ operating budgets.
Some of the expenses listed absolutely raise eyebrows and deserve the light of public scrutiny. Why are councilmembers spending thousands of dollars of taxpayer money on restaurant meals, catered events and renting suites at baseball games? If the answers involve entertaining staff or campaign donors, then those practices should be halted.
Are costs associated with the design and production of banners, billboards, magnets, stickers, brochures and mailers truly a community benefit, or do those sorts of promotional items benefit the incumbent in the next election? That’s another question worth asking after reading through the lists of expenses.
So too is whether each council member really needs $700,000 per year to spend practically at will and, by appearances, with little oversight. (That’s in addition to the $5,000 stipend each receives for meals and mileage, their $80,000 salaries and the $500,000 allotted to each district for infrastructure projects.) Perhaps an audit of these expenditures is warranted, as Bredefeld suggests.
“It’s not a pretty picture,” he said. “I think what they’re doing is outrageous.”
Of course he does. Bredefeld has been in a perpetual state of outrage since returning to the City Council in 2017 as a more stridently conservative version of his former self. Who can forget the Trump-inspired rant against NFL players for kneeling or his pretending to know more about infectious diseases than medical experts during a global pandemic?
Which is why this latest batch of accusations probably won’t reverberate very far — like the four council members he charged with using taxpayer money as “slush funds” are counting on.
Just because Bredefeld doesn’t carry a city credit card doesn’t grant him any moral high ground. Rather, it just might be an indication he isn’t as involved in his district as council members that organize community events and pay for them out of their operating budgets. He’s also termed out, meaning there are no votes in his district left to garner.
Socioeconomic factors also can’t be overlooked. The northeast Fresno families Bredefeld represents, at least to a greater degree compared to those in other parts of town, can afford bikes for their kids, candy apples on Halloween and frozen turkeys on Thanksgiving. They don’t need such freebies from the city.
Councilmember responses telling
The varied response by the four accused (Councilmembers Mike Karbassi and Luis Chavez escaped Bredefeld’s wrath) was interesting and somewhat telling.
Esparza and Maxwell, the youthful duo serving as president and VP after Bredefeld got boxed out of council leadership, were quick to issue a joint statement that condemned Bredefeld’s “baseless attacks” and made each sound defensive.
“Expenditures out of City Hall hold a public purpose in serving the community, something that Councilmember Bredefeld is very unfamiliar with,” Esparza said.
“I answer to my District 4 families, not to Councilmember Bredefeld,” Maxwell added. “I will not stop purchasing items, like bicycles, for children living in District 4 to get to school.”
Soria waited seven hours hours before publicly responding and did so in a lighter tone that chided Bredefeld for continuing to waste taxpayer funds and resources on politically motivated attacks.
Arias, ever the savvy operator, didn’t bother with a formal statement and only made an offhand reference to the matter on social media. Why give a negative story any extra oxygen?
One can be certain Esparza, Maxwell, Soria and Arias don’t appreciate Bredefeld lifting the veil on discretionary council spending, the particulars of which can be difficult to explain to average citizens. Tough beans. They’re public servants, and this concerns public money.
Still, I can’t help but think these revelations, had they come from the mouth of practically any other Fresno resident, wouldn’t be so easily disregarded, disputed or shrugged off.
Which is an unfortunate side effect of being the Politician Who Cried Wolf. Spout enough false claims that no one listens when your words may contain some truth.
