\t\t\t\t\twhat’s at stake?<\/p>\n
The council leadership makes the ultimate call on what gets put on the agenda for discussion, and how council meetings are run, including public comment.<\/p>\n
The Fresno City Council re-elected Councilmember Mike Karbassi for a second term with the president\u2019s gavel on Thursday during the first meeting of 2026, the last year that most of these politicians serve their term in their respective districts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Central Fresno Councilmember Nelson Esparza was also elected as vice president.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The vote comes after an ordinance passed in 2024<\/a> amending city code to allow for re-elections, as opposed to a procedural rotation as seen at the county\u2019s board of supervisors<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n This year marks the final year this makeup of the city council will still exist, as a majority of the dais leave or seek a different office \u2014 offering local voters the possibility of introducing a massive shift to the city\u2019s political landscape.\u00a0<\/p>\n Councilmember Brandon Vang will seek re-election this summer for the southeast city district, after winning a special election to finish an incomplete term; Councilmembers Annalisa Perea<\/a> and Mike Karbassi<\/a> will seek higher office, with the west city districts up for grabs, and a chance at an opening of the northwest seat should the latter win a bid for county supervisor; Councilmembers Miguel Arias and Nelson Esparza will term out of their seats, guaranteeing new representation in the central and southwest districts.\u00a0<\/p>\n Esparza announced on Thursday morning<\/a> a bid for the California Board of Equalization.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mayor Dyer reassured of Gov. Newsom\u2019s $250 million commitment to Fresno<\/p>\n The last of a $250 million commitment from the state toward the city\u2019s downtown revitalization efforts is in the governor\u2019s recently announced budget for the next fiscal year,<\/a> according to Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer.<\/p>\n The mayor said at Thursday\u2019s council meeting that he was assured by the director of the state\u2019s department of finance on a recent call that the remaining $100 million is in the recently presented budget<\/a> by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere were a lot of naysayers out there that said it would never materialize, that the governor wouldn\u2019t come through,\u201d Dyer said. \u201cI\u2019m here to tell you, looks like the governor\u2019s going to come through with all $250 million.\u201d<\/p>\n Newsom initially pledged the funding in 2023<\/a> to help the city replace severely outdated infrastructure to Fresno\u2019s downtown district \u2014 a problem the mayor and developers have singled out as one of, if not the most, significant hurdles in Dyer\u2019s desire to get 10,000 living in the heart of the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n The governor\u2019s investment inflated to nearly $300 million<\/a> after an influx of housing infrastructure support.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n However, it remains to be seen whether the nine-figure investment will survive the budget\u2019s May revisions. The governor\u2019s commitment to downtown Fresno funding has been delivered in installments<\/a>, at least in part, due to the state\u2019s need to constantly shore up projected deficits.\u00a0<\/p>\n The state budget has a projected $18 billion deficit heading into the next fiscal year<\/a>, and the state\u2019s independent analysis group has already poked significant holes into Newsom\u2019s proposals<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"what’s at stake? The council leadership makes the ultimate call on what gets put on the agenda for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,8019,69095,114,113,10332,9260,25597],"class_list":{"0":"post-135369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-city-council","10":"tag-fresno-downtown-revitalization","11":"tag-fresno-headlines","12":"tag-fresno-news","13":"tag-jerry-dyer","14":"tag-mike-karbassi","15":"tag-nelson-esparza"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}