In This Newsletter:

Volunteer Now! Three Weeks to Election Day!

We’re down to the wire. Ballots are dropping. Connect with voters now. See opportunities to engage and tools to assist with those efforts below. For more info, contact Krista De La Torre at 559-313-4345 or [email protected]. Your assistance is essential to our success.

Local Candidate Focus: Part 2

Mayor of Kerman
Espi Sandoval is a Kerman City Council member now running for the top position in his city. An educator by trade, Sandoval was only the second Hispanic member ever elected to the Kerman City Council, despite the town’s large Hispanic population. After winning his council race in 2016 on a budget of just $300, he has worked to advance Democratic ideals seeing that “justice, equality, diversity and patriotism under attack by the Republican Party.” Sandoval’s priorities include affordable housing for seniors and low-income families, building a community center and improving programs and services for senior citizens and youth.

Mayor of Selma
Louie Franco is currently serving as mayor pro tem of Selma on the City Council and is running to be the first elected mayor not rotated through the city council. Raised by a single mother who relied on the aid of social programs, Franco knows the necessity of our government helping its people. His priority is to provide staff resources and support to address Selma’s decaying infrastructure, which has limited the city’s ability to bring housing and green space to the community. Franco says that equality is important to him: “I believe equality includes gender, race and socioeconomic equality.”

Fowler City Council
Alexander Grimaldi is the founder of Grimaldi Beauty, a local skin care company. An African-American member of the LGBTQ+ community, Grimaldi has been dedicated to the ideals of the Democratic Party since a young age and feels it is his duty to be part of a generational change in Valley politics. He is advocating for city council term limits and the direct election of Fowler’s mayor.

Fowler City Council
Patric Jones is running for one of three seats on the Fowler City Council this election cycle. He has lived in Fowler for more than 50 years and is a Fowler High School graduate. His passion is for Fowler’s youth and seniors, which has led to his campaign to build a senior center as well as new housing for seniors and low-income families. Jones wants “to bring the town back together to become the shining star as it was years ago.”

San Joaquin City Council                        
Eva Luna is a small business owner who is stepping up to run for city council. Luna has been involved in city council affairs for years as a concerned citizen, and now wants to make the change from bringing problems to attention to working toward solving them for her city. San Joaquin’s problems with air quality, housing for vulnerable seniors and street maintenance are at the front of her mind.

San Joaquin City Council                        
Maria “Cristina” Covarrubia views government transparency as a way to attract businesses that will invest in and help the community. She insists that rural housing in the region needs to be addressed, along with the perennial issues of air quality and proper road maintenance, and protecting the water quality of the many households who depend on well-drawn water.

Sanger City Council District 1                        
Esmeralda Hurtado was appointed to the Sanger City Council in early 2019 to fill the vacancy on the council when her sister, Melissa, successfully won election to the State Senate. Since her appointment, she has worked to bring clean and safe water and affordable housing to Sanger. If elected, her priority will be infrastructure repair, especially the city streets.

Sanger City Council DIstrict 3                        
Daniel Martinez is the District 3 incumbent and currently serves as mayor pro tem. Martinez’s priorities, if reelected, include continuing to ensure proper resources for Sanger managing Covid-19, building on recent successes to expand affordable housing, continuing to build parks and green spaces, expanding Sanger’s city limits, increasing industrial zoning space and addressing homelessness.

Beware Unauthorized Ballot
Drop Boxes in Fresno County

California Secretary of State Alex Padila has received reports of possible unauthorized ballot drop boxes in Fresno County. These reports show unsanctioned receptacles labeled as “official ballot drop off box,” which is an illegal misrepresentation.

The Fresno County Repubican party has posted a list of “secure” ballot drop off sites, none of which are the real county ballot boxes. The California Republican party claims this is legal vote harvesting, citing a law that allows voters to designate a person to carry their ballot to an official voting site, however, these efforts do not clear that legal bar as there is no “designated person.”

We encourage all voters to be cautious. When you or someone you know is ready to return their ballot to an official drop off box, make sure to check the official list of locations at www.co.fresno.ca.us/home/showdocument?id=41147.

Your Democratic Party Endorsements

Visit https://cadem.org/vote/endorsements/ for the endorsements specific to your address. For more information, contact 559-495-0606 or [email protected].

Candidates

Congress District 4                                                               Brynne Kennedy
Congress District 16                                                             Rep. Jim Costa
Congress District 21                                                             Rep. TJ Cox
Congress District 22                                                             Phil Arballo
Assembly District 31                                                             Dr. Joaquin Aramula
Fresno County Board of Education Trustee Area 3              Daren Miller
State Center Community College District Trustee Area 2     Nasreen Johnson
State Center Community College District Trustee Area 3     Dary Rezvani
State Center Community College District Trustee Area 7     Abena Cruise
Mayor of Kerman                                                                   Espi Sandoval
Mayor of Selma                                                                      Louie Franco
Fowler City Council                                                                Alexander Grimaldi
Fowler City Council                                                                Patric Jones
San Joaquin City Council                                                       Eva Luna
San Joaquin City Council                                           Maria “Cristina” Covarrubia
Sanger City Council District 1                                                Esmeralda Hurtado
Sanger City Council DIstrict 3                                                Daniel Martinez
Fresno Unified School District Trustee Area 5                       David Paredes
Fresno Unified School District Trustee Area 6                       Claudia Cazares
Central Unified School District Trustee Area 4                       Shawn M. Brooks
Clovis Unified School District Trustee Area 4                         Noha Elbaz
Clovis Unified School District Trustee Area 7                        Christopher Casado
Mendota Unified School District                                       Kevin G. Arias-Romero
Sanger Unified School District Trustee Area 1                   Sebastian Ardemagni
Sanger Unified School District Trustee Area 4                       Vao Pa Her
Selma Unified School District Trustee Area 2                        Jaspreet Nagra
Calwa Recreation and Park District Director                          Laura Garcia 

 

Learn more via CVPPAC Proposition Voters Guide

Biden Plan to Aid Native Communities

Under the last Census, Fresno County’s population was 3% full Native American and up to 9.6% mixed identity, but as in most places across the United States these communities often receive less political attention than is deserved.

This month, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris traveled to Arizona where they greeted American Indian tribal leaders in Phoenix. Following that, they delivered remarks before embarking on a “Soul of the Nation” bus tour to meet with small business owners in Phoenix and Tempe, as well as voters on the second day of early voting.

Biden's nationwide plan offers proposals to remedy healthcare disparities, address climate change, restore tribal lands in some places and repair the damage past companies have inflicted in others. With Fresno County’s Native American communities often situated in our fire-threatened foothills, the climate change impact is especially crucial here.

Biden would also work to ensure Native peoples’ right to vote, protect cultural areas and increase resources to make tribal communities safer.

Global Warming Is Local and Dire

Months of trying to stay inside to escape choking smoke while the mountains above us burn has thrown global warming’s steady march of dry heat to the front of our minds here in the Central Valley. Anyone with a long memory can clearly see that these fire seasons are steadily more frequent and more devastating with each decade that passes. The glaciers that used to provide steady trickles of summer water to the forests of the mountains and hills are nearly all gone, while the rains come later and later.

It is long past time for the world to drastically cut its use of fossil fuels for energy generation, transportation, mining and agriculture. California just has the bad luck to be near the front of the line to pay the cost.

Our Central Valley needs to do more to carry our part in the solution. We must be active. The agriculture industry relies on the climate to provide the water it needs, yet it is also a large-scale contributor to the damage through livestock emissions and fuel use in both production and shipping.

But even if we do make the needed major changes, the damage already done will continue to slowly show itself over the next hundred years, and we have no choice but to adapt or watch more people die. That casts doubt as to the future of our state’s expanding habitation in drying forests, ever-increasing agricultural output in a state with less and less water, and sprawling asphalt communities that are built around cars first and humans second.

Unfortunately, Republicans and even several California Democrats have seized on the idea that this year of fires was caused by insufficient logging. However, actual scientific observation reveals that so-called management logging has at best no effect on the magnitude of fires and at worst makes them worse.

Large trees, alive or dead, are hard to burn, as anyone who has ever had to split firewood could tell you. On the other hand, once a mature tree is removed from the forest, that space it leaves behind is quickly filled by shrubs, young trees and invasive grasses, all of which are thin and easy fuel in the face of a desiccating line of fire.

Fresno County Ballot Drop Box
and Vote Center Information

Democratic Party HQ

Contact the Democratic Party HQ ([email protected] or 559-495-0606) today for your Biden-Harris yard sign. You can donate to support the local Democratic Party via ActBlue or by mailing a check to Fresno County Democratic Party, P.O. Box 5795, Fresno, CA 93755.
 

A final thought:

After watching the Vice Presidential debate, I’m starting to think Pence never actually agreed to be Vice President, and just answered a different question when asked.

Our newsletter is prepared by Francis Horan.

Democratic Party Headquarters: 1033 U Street, Fresno, CA 93721

[email protected]
559-495-0606

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