City Council members calling out Fresno County for lack of transparency

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- City Council members Garry Bredefeld and Luis Chavez have already won a legal battle with Fresno County - but the fight isn't over yet.

On Tuesday, they submitted a public records request for financial records related to a lawsuit against them.

Last year, the Fresno County Board of Supervisors, with the exception of Sal Quintero and Steve Brandau, voted in closed session to sue Chavez and Bredefeld over alleged campaign finance issues.

"These tactics that were used in Fresno County is what you would usually find in their old countries, and places like Russia, where the dictator goes after opponents for political purposes," said Luis Chavez.

The lawsuit claimed Bredefeld and Chavez were trying to transfer too much money from their city council campaign funds to support their campaigns for supervisor seats.

A county ordinance that went into effect in 2021 put a cap on those contributions.

"I felt that we had an ordinance that tried to make it exactly equal for all contributors. That was the main point of our ordinance that $30,000 in the county ordinance applied to all contributors regardless of source," said Fresno County Counsel, Dan Cederborg.

But a Fresno County Superior judge disagreed.

The county tells Action News the cost of the lawsuit was just over $200,000.

That includes more than $72,000 in legal fees for the two council members, which the county was ordered to pay.

"For 50 years, the US Supreme Court has held that campaign funds are equivalent speech because those funds are the only way for candidates to effectively communicate with voters. In other words, candidate spending is protected by the first Amendment of the US constitution," said Garry Bredefeld.

Fresno County Counsel Dan Cederborg said he was not persuaded by the Board of Supervisors to file the lawsuit against Bredefeld and Chavez.

"The rule of law is important. And people have their own interest on why they want to take a certain position about something. My job is to try and look at what we have on the books on the ordinance and enforce that the best I can," said Cederborg.

The county said it plans to fulfill the Public Act request from Bredefeld and Chavez within the allotted time frame.

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