Seven candidates at an election forum hosted by the Fresno High neighborhood’s Big Red Church on Monday were pressed on topics both well-trodden in this election cycle — like their position on the mayor’s sprawling Southeast Development Area plan — and previously under-discussed — like their thoughts on the city’s contracts with Flock Safety.
The two-part forum, which organizers say drew nearly 90 attendees, featured seven candidates for Fresno City Council running in the District 1 and District 7 races. It was organized by the Youth Leadership Institute, the Big Red Church, Faith in the Valley and the League of Women Voters with Fresnoland investigative reporter Omar Rashad co-moderating the candidate panels.
The event kicked off with questions — both from the organizers and audience — for the four candidates competing to replace the current District 1 councilmember, Annalisa Perea.
The District 1 candidates reiterated, for one, their unanimous support for the Better Roads Safe Streets plan to succeed Fresno County’s soon-to-expire Measure C transportation tax, as well as their opposition to SEDA — at least “in its current form” for all four.
The candidates were also asked how they will fight to protect their LGBTQ+ neighbors, particularly as council representatives for the Tower District, a historic haven in the Central Valley for the LGBTQ+ community.
Monte Forkas, a retired flight attendant who now runs a small campaign consulting business, said that one is easy for him.
“I’m a proud gay man. Showing up, standing up, speaking up — that’s very, very important to me,” Forkas said. “We are under attack right now across the nation, in regards to books, in regards to flags, in regards to just a seat at the table.”
Rob Fuentes, an Assistant U.S. Attorney, pointed to his work on the State Center Community College District Board of Trustees leading a task force to create recommendations for the board to “better protect and better serve” LGBTQ+ students, work he said he’d look to replicate at City Hall.
Joe Hinojosa, the City of Fresno’s ADA Coordinator, praised Councilmember Perea’s efforts to carve out grants for local organizations serving the LGBTQ+ community as the Trump administration moves to defund LGBTQ+-focused groups. Perea is the City of Fresno’s first openly gay councilmember.
Hinojosa also criticized the Fresno County Board of Supervisors for their recent decision to bar the county library from participating in local Pride Month celebrations.
Naindeep Singh, the executive director of Jakara Movement and a Central Unified school board trustee, criticized Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer’s recently unveiled budget proposal for leaving out funding specifically for the LGBTQ+ community — one of multiple swings Singh took at the mayor’s proposal throughout Monday’s District 1 forum.
Fresnoland reached out to the mayor’s office for comment on the inclusion of funds for LGBTQ+ organizations.
One District 7 candidate later joined Singh with more critiques of Dyer’s budget during part two of the forum, which featured three of the four candidates running to replace termed-out District 7 Fresno City Councilmember Nelson Esparza.
When asked whether they support the city’s anti-camping ordinance, community organizer and former council District 3 staffer Ariana Martinez Lott said she opposes the policy. She also criticized Dyer’s recent proposal to fund a second Homeless Assistance Response Team with funds from the police budget in the coming fiscal year.
“Policing people and arresting people,” Martinez Lott said, “is not going to solve the issue.”
She added that she wants to find a different solution for business owners and residents who have voiced concerns about homeless encampments near their properties, potentially by introducing no-camping “buffer zones” within residential areas or near storefronts.
Nav Gurm, an attorney and political consultant also running in the District 7 race, had a different take, saying he supports the anti-camping policy although it needs reform.
He said he would look to other cities for models of how to get homeless people off the streets, such as San Jose’s mass rollout of tiny homes as interim housing, and said he wants to see CARE Courts implemented more widely on the county level.
AJ Rassamni, a business owner and founder of the Blackstone Merchants Association, also departed from his opponents when it came to homelessness.
Rassamni wants the city to run sanctioned outdoor lots where homeless residents can camp and where the city would provide services like water.
Other responses from the District 7 candidates illustrated clearer lines between them on Monday — with the three taking distinct positions on SEDA, for example.
Martinez Lott said she is opposed not just to SEDA in its current form but “any version, even a smaller one.”
Rassamni said he’s also a “no” on SEDA in its current form. He added that the city will eventually have to grow, however, and that he could support some version of SEDA in the future if the residents that will be most affected by the plan approve and if its infrastructure is built out in advance.
Gurm said he’s also opposed to SEDA in its current form. But as for a pared down version of the plan that the mayor has called “South SEDA,” Gurm said he’d have to see a proposal with “very strict lines in the sand” before he could decide whether to support it.
Those lines include preventing the city from using the city’s general fund to pay for the infrastructure and instead making use of enhanced infrastructure financing districts.
The District 7 candidates also had different takes on a question from the audience regarding whether they support the city police department’s more than $1.6 million-dollar contract with Flock Safety to provide and install AI-assisted cameras in the city.
Other local jurisdictions have weighed cutting ties with the company over concerns that the company’s contracts have loopholes that would allow it to share certain data with the federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency.
Gurm said he hadn’t studied the issue extensively, but added that if Flock is cooperating with federal immigration enforcement operations, “it’s a very easy ‘no’ for me.”
Martinez Lott said she’s strongly opposed to the use of Flock cameras and wants the next District 7 councilmember to use their power to weigh in when the city’s Flock contract comes up for renewal in 2027.
Rassamni said the use of surveillance cameras isn’t new and that he’s not personally opposed to their use. But he added that he believes the public should’ve had an opportunity to weigh in on their implementation in Fresno and that he would take the public’s opinions into account as a councilmember.
Election Day for the primary is June 2, but ballots have already been mailed out, and vote centers will start to open this weekend. Check out Fresnoland’s guides to all four Fresno City Council contests, as well as other key local elections, by visiting our website.
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