Garry Bredefeld is wrapping up his third term on the Fresno City Council and is running for the Fresno County Board of Supervisors in District 2.
Bredefeld spoke with The Sun for political podcast series, The Stump, airing on Sunrise FM.
The big picture: After being first elected to the Fresno City Council for one term in 1997, Bredefeld made a return to City Hall by winning another election bid in 2016, followed up by his re-election for his third term overall in 2020.
- Bredefeld served in the Navy from 1985 to 1998, serving as a Lieutenant and stationed at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and the Naval Medical Clinic in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
- He came to Fresno in 1982 to attend graduate school and has made a career as a clinical psychologist, which included 27 years working part-time at the Fresno Veterans Hospital in addition to his private practice.
- While he has been rumored in recent years as a possible candidate for the California Legislature or Congress, Bredefeld opted to run for the Board of Supervisors to do away with the good ole boy club, as he calls it.
What they’re saying: “As I’ve looked at the board for many years now, it’s been clear to me for some time that the board is like a good ole boy club, and after five years they vest in a retirement system and it becomes a retirement club,” Bredefeld said.
- Some of the main issues Bredefeld highlighted include getting a tax sharing agreement done between the City of Fresno and the county to allow the city to build new housing, as well as revamping the Department of Behavioral Health to work with the city on homelessness.
- Bredefeld also has his eyes set on how the county passes its $5 billion budget.
- “The attitude is going to change, and it will be very public,” Bredefeld said. “There will be no more things working in the back doors. There will be no more passing $5 billion budgets from the Board of Supervisors in 15 minutes, where you have one public hearing, no public comment. All of those shady backroom kinds of things – that’s all coming to an end.”
