Clovis City Councilmember – and former Clovis Police Chief – Matt Basgall won’t be vying for a second term in 2026, he told media outlets on Tuesday.
Basgall, who spent 29 years rising through the ranks of the Clovis Police Department, ran for Clovis City Council in 2022 after the dual exits of then-Mayor and now-Superior Court Justice Robert Whalen and former Mayor Jose Flores.
The big picture: Basgall helped drive Clovis’ push to strengthen public safety funding to match residents’ high standards, backing the city’s successful Measure Y sales tax measure and providing insights as the former leader of the city’s largest single department.
- Earlier this year, Clovis lawmakers approved their shift to by-district elections, adopting their first ever district map. The adopted map placed Basgall and 2022’s top vote-getter, Mayor Pro Tem Diane Pearce, in the same northeast Clovis district.
- Basgall initially appeared prepared for a re-election bid, hosting a fundraiser early in 2025. By Tuesday, per comments to GV Wire, he changed his mind.
- Pearce is expected to run for re-election to the shared district.
What he’s saying: “Having served a few years on (the city council), I probably determined that politics probably isn’t just the best for me. So we’ll give somebody else an opportunity to jump in and run,” Basgall told GV Wire.
- “I learned that it’s probably, being a police chief, it’s a lot easier to get things done. You can just kind of get after it and make things happen and I think when you’re working in a political environment and council environment, it is not as easy or as quickly to get things done as you would like to do. And I think that sometimes becomes frustrating as well.”
