A candidate for Fresno City Council called this week for the recall of Garry Bredefeld, chairman of the Fresno County supervisors, because of his instrumental role in blocking a local transportation tax proposal from appearing on the November ballot.
Naindeep Singh, running for the District 1 council seat, made the call during his public comment on the council’s last-ditch effort to offset the likely loss of millions of dollars in Measure C revenue as that tax sunsets next year by approving its own half-cent general sales tax for Fresno voters to consider on the Nov 3 ballot.
Singh said that Fresno should not have elected officials who “do not fear voters at all. I think there’s a conversation for us to all be having about recalling Garry Bredefeld,” Singh said as he closed his statement to the council last Thursday.
Measure C, a countywide half-cent tax set to expire July 2027, has brought in roughly $150 million annually, which is shared among various county governments. How to replace Measure C revenue has been at the center of Fresno politics for the past few months.
Two competing countywide proposals have vied for political support, but proponents of Better Roads, Safe Streets, which dedicates more revenue to mass transit, collected around 32,000 signatures across the county, more than the required amount. It’s supported by nine of the county’s 15 cities, including Fresno and Clovis.
Bredefeld has been the measure’s biggest critic. Instead of approving it for the Nov. 3 ballot, supervisors voted 3-2 for a 30-day study, which effectively delays it until March 2028, if ever approved.
“The main thing is I’m a conservative,” he said. “I believe in traditional values, and I’m going to fight for those. I’m not going to sit by while you have radical woke leftists like Mr. Singh destroy our community, destroy our city, destroy our county. And so I don’t back down. I double down and then I triple down.”
And to the threat of a recall, he said, “Bring it on, baby.”
Bredefeld told The Bee that he thinks the tax lasts too long at 30 years and allocates too much of the funds to public transportation and not enough to local roads. He said the measure is a public transportation tax disguised as a road tax designed to trick people out of their cars and onto buses, bikes or scooters.
Singh posted on social media this week that Bredefeld used parliamentary maneuvering to block the will of the people and should be held accountable.
“Bredefeld will burn this county down to feed his own ego,” Singh said in a social media post Monday. “He didn’t beat us; he is trying to stall us. Now a sham study, timed to miss the deadline, on a clock he alone controls.”
Singh is not involved in an official effort to initiate a recall at this point, but he told The Bee on Tuesday he wanted to “start the conversation” after hearing concerns from residents.
Better Roads, Safe Streets would last 30 years and tally an estimated $7.4 billion, with 65% of the funds going into local streets and 25% into public transportation. Bredefield has also criticized the plan for being too long.
Two state representatives introduced a bill on Monday to bypass the supervisors’ vote.
Singh’s campaign for the council seat that covers a large portion of northwest and west-central Fresno, including Tower District, the Fresno High area and areas west of Highway 99, is built around lowering the cost of living for working families. He has said he plans to introduce policies to reduce housing, utility and childcare costs if elected to the city council.
He finished as the frontrunner in the June primary election race for District 1. He faces runner-up candidate Rob Fuentes, an attorney and SCCCD trustee, in the November general election.
The city of Fresno and the county each have about a $1.5 billion backlog in street repairs. Fresno’s infrastructure backlog will increase by $55 million annually without an alternative funding source, according to the resolution, and place 217 jobs in jeopardy, according to Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer, who supports Better Roads, Safe Streets.
Singh’s post about recalling Bredefield has over 750 likes and 70 comments on Instagram and Facebook as of Tuesday afternoon.
A Reddit thread was also posted two months ago titled “We can recall Bredefeld.” Hundreds of users interacted with the post that states, “He’s already demonstrated he wants culture war fights, not making Fresno County a better place to live.”
Bredefeld has been criticized in recent months for leading controversial efforts to deny the libraries’ participation in Pride Month activities and for declaring June as “Traditional Nuclear Family Month” in Fresno County.
What does it actually take to recall an elected official?
The official recall process for a county supervisor is fairly complicated, can take up to a year and requires quite a few steps, Fresno County Clerk/Registar of Voters James Kus told The Bee.
Among them are providing and publishing a formal notice, preparing likely multiple drafts of a recall petition and gathering enough signatures from voters within the district. And only someone from that district can initiate the process or vote in the recall election.
Singh, who lives west of the 99, does not live in Bredefeld’s county district.
A Central Unified School Board trustee, he might be the first Fresno elected official to publicly call for a recall of Bredefeld, who many blame for blocking the citizen-led Measure C renewal from the ballot.
This story was originally published August 6, 2026 at 9:16 AM.
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