The two-part forum, which organizers say drew nearly 90 attendees, featured seven candidates for Fresno City Council running in the District 1<\/a> and District 7<\/a> races. It was organized by the Youth Leadership Institute, the Big Red Church, Faith in the Valley and the League of Women Voters, with Fresnoland investigative reporter Omar Rashad co-moderating the candidate panels.<\/p>\n The event kicked off with questions \u2014 both from the organizers and audience \u2014 for the four candidates competing to replace the current District 1 councilmember, Annalisa Perea.<\/p>\n The District 1 candidates reiterated<\/a>, for one, their unanimous support for the Better Roads Safe Streets plan to succeed Fresno County\u2019s soon-to-expire Measure C transportation tax, as well as their opposition to SEDA \u2014 at least \u201cin its current form\u201d for all four<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The candidates were also asked how they will fight to protect their LGBTQ+ neighbors, particularly as council representatives for the Tower District, a historic haven in the Central Valley for the LGBTQ+ community.<\/p>\n Monte Forkas, a retired flight attendant who now runs a small campaign consulting business, said that one is easy for him.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a proud gay man. Showing up, standing up, speaking up \u2014 that\u2019s very, very important to me,\u201d Forkas said. \u201cWe are under attack right now across the nation, in regards to books, in regards to flags, in regards to just a seat at the table.\u201d<\/p>\n Rob Fuentes, an Assistant U.S. Attorney, pointed to his work on the State Center Community College District Board of Trustees leading a task force to create recommendations for the board to \u201cbetter protect and better serve\u201d LGBTQ+ students, work he said he\u2019d look to replicate at City Hall.<\/p>\n Joe Hinojosa, the City of Fresno\u2019s ADA Coordinator, praised Councilmember Perea\u2019s efforts to carve out grants for local organizations serving the LGBTQ+ community<\/a> as the Trump administration moves to defund LGBTQ+-focused groups. Perea is the City of Fresno\u2019s first openly gay councilmember<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hinojosa also criticized the Fresno County Board of Supervisors<\/a> for their recent decision to bar the county library from participating in local Pride Month celebrations.<\/p>\n Naindeep Singh, the executive director of Jakara Movement and a Central Unified school board trustee, criticized Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer\u2019s recently unveiled budget proposal<\/a> for leaving out funding specifically for the LGBTQ+ community \u2014 one of multiple swings that Singh took at the mayor\u2019s proposal throughout Monday\u2019s District 1 forum.<\/p>\n In a written statement Tuesday afternoon, city spokesperson Sontaya Rose said that for the past few years, funding to support the LGBTQ+ community has been added into the final budget through negotiations between the mayor and Councilmember Perea.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI anticipate this will happen,\u201d she said, \u201c(in) Fiscal Year 27 as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Rose also pointed to past grants to LGBTQ+-supporting organizations that she said have totaled over $1 million and the creation of an LGBTQ+ liaison position under the Dyer administration.<\/p>\n One District 7 candidate later joined Singh with more critiques of Dyer\u2019s budget during part two of the forum, which featured three of the four candidates running to replace termed-out Councilmember Nelson Esparza.<\/p>\n When asked whether they support the city\u2019s anti-camping ordinance, community organizer and former council District 3 staffer Ariana Martinez Lott said she opposes the policy. She also criticized Dyer\u2019s recent proposal to fund a second Homeless Assistance Response Team<\/a> with funds from the police budget in the coming fiscal year.<\/p>\n \u201cPolicing people and arresting people,\u201d Martinez Lott said, \u201cis not going to solve the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n She added that she wants to find a different solution for business owners and residents who have voiced concerns about homeless encampments near their properties<\/a>, potentially by introducing no-camping \u201cbuffer zones\u201d within residential areas or near storefronts.<\/p>\n Nav Gurm, an attorney and political consultant also running in the District 7 race, had a different take, saying he supports the anti-camping policy although it needs reform.<\/p>\n He said he would look to other cities for models of how to get homeless people off the streets, such as San Jose\u2019s mass rollout of tiny homes as interim housing<\/a>, and said he wants to see CARE Courts implemented<\/a> more widely on the county level.<\/p>\n AJ Rassamni, a business owner and founder of the Blackstone Merchants Association, also departed from his opponents when it came to homelessness.<\/p>\n Rassamni wants the city to run sanctioned outdoor lots where homeless residents can camp and where the city would provide services like water.<\/p>\n Other responses from the District 7 candidates illustrated clearer lines between them on Monday \u2014 with the three taking distinct positions on SEDA, for example.<\/p>\n Martinez Lott said she is opposed not just to SEDA in its current form, but \u201cany version, even a smaller one.\u201d<\/p>\n Rassamni said he\u2019s also a \u201cno\u201d on SEDA in its current form. He added that the city will eventually have to grow, however, and that he could support some version of SEDA in the future if the residents that will be most affected by the plan approve and if its infrastructure is built out in advance.<\/p>\n Gurm said he\u2019s also opposed to SEDA in its current form. But as for a pared down version of the plan that the mayor has called \u201cSouth SEDA<\/a>,\u201d Gurm said he\u2019d have to see a proposal with \u201cvery strict lines in the sand\u201d before he could decide whether to support it.<\/p>\n Those lines include preventing the city from using the city\u2019s general fund to pay for the infrastructure and instead making use of enhanced infrastructure financing districts<\/a>.<\/p>\n The District 7 candidates also had different takes on a question regarding whether they support the city police department\u2019s more than $1.6 million-dollar contract<\/a> with Flock Safety to provide and install AI-assisted cameras in the city.<\/p>\n Other local jurisdictions have weighed cutting ties with the company over concerns that the company\u2019s contracts have loopholes<\/a> that would allow it to share certain data with the federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency.<\/p>\n Gurm said he hadn\u2019t studied the issue extensively, but added that if Flock is cooperating with federal immigration enforcement operations, \u201cit\u2019s a very easy \u2018no\u2019 for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Martinez Lott said she\u2019s strongly opposed to the use of Flock cameras and wants the next District 7 councilmember to use their power to weigh in when the city\u2019s Flock contract comes up for renewal in 2027.<\/p>\n Rassamni said the use of surveillance cameras isn\u2019t new and that he\u2019s not personally opposed to their use. But he added that he believes the public should\u2019ve had an opportunity to weigh in on their implementation in Fresno and that he would take the public\u2019s opinions into account as a councilmember.<\/p>\n Election Day for the primary is June 2, but ballots have already been mailed out, and vote centers will start to open this weekend. Check out Fresnoland\u2019s guides to all four Fresno City Council contests, as well as other key local elections, by visiting our website<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What\u2019s at stake? With just over two weeks to go before Election Day, seven candidates running across two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-323519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323519","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=323519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_0631.jpg\")
Candidates for Fresno City Council District 1 \u2014 from left, Naindeep Singh, Joe Hinojosa, Monte Forkas and Rob Fuentes \u2014 participated in a two-part election forum hosted by the Big Red Church in the Fresno High neighborhood. Julianna Morano | Fresnoland<\/p>\n