PARLIER – This November, contests for city council races, school board elections and local bond measures will be listed lower on the ballot, but they are not any lower in importance.
Local elections are often decided by just a handful of votes, highlighting the impact of each individual’s voice in the community. In Parlier, residents who want to see change in their cities, be that improved roads, increased public safety or more commercial and residential development, will have the chance to vote on city council candidates promising to bring something new to the area.
The Parlier City Council is made up of four residents who are elected by district and one mayor who is elected at-large. Council members and the mayor are elected to four-year staggered terms with no limits. Parlier residents also vote for their city treasurer and city clerk every four years.
In District 1, Fernando Banuelos is running against incumbent Sabrina Rodriguez and Juan Montano. District 1 covers the easternmost section of Parlier. Rodriguez was first elected to the council in 2020. She received 30.4% of the vote over Montano, who received 27% of the vote, and residents Roxanne Trujillo and Dubelsa “Duby” Trevino, who received 24.7% and 17.9% of the vote, respectively.
Also up for election to the city council are four candidates running in District 3, including Alfred Gonzales, Michelle Lopez, Claudia Vera and incumbent Kathy Solorio. The Mid Valley Times was unable to reach Montano, from District 1, and all candidates from District 3 by press time; updated Q&As will be posted online.
California voters can use the Secretary of State’s online voter registration tool at registertovote.ca.gov to register to vote or check their status. Voters in Fresno County can use an online district lookup tool through their respective county elections office to enter their address and find what Congressional, state, county and city districts they live in.
Baneulos spoke with Mineral King Publishing about his background and his goals for the next four years if he is elected Nov. 5. Interview responses have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: What is your background?
BANUELOS: My roots have been in the Central Valley for over 60 years. My family have been farmers for about 60 years, maybe 65. We have experienced droughts and massive market falls due to crisis. My family had been in farming, and I was also in farming for a while. I was on the school board, and I managed about a $42 million budget.
I was a manager at Bank of America. I worked as a director of a medical center. I was a professor or a teacher at Fresno City College, also Reedley College, and I ran for school board. I was a school board (member) for Parlier, and I ran for state assembly, (the) 34th district in 2020. I ran for mayor in 2022 and currently am running for (a) city council position.
I have a master’s in business, I have a bachelor’s in industrial technology. I have a degree in theology. I wanted to become a minister. Well, first of all, I wanted to become a priest, and that hadn’t happened when I was young, but then I wanted to become a minister, so I went to theology school. Have a vocation adult credential, have a prison ministry certification, have drug and alcohol certification and a grant writer.
Q: What do you hope to change or accomplish in the next term, if elected?
BANUELOS: The first thing that I’m going to do is tackle the budget (and) to understand what is a true budget. We’re in a deficit. We have to hire a financial director, which we don’t have right now. We have to hire a city manager, one who is qualified, one that understands small cities and one that has been really successful in bringing up a city that is not relying on big companies, but to rely on the people themselves with taxes.
The second one is, I’ll meet with the chief of police to determine if the city is in a chaotic crime rise, which is really, really important. We had to implement some of the programs into the city, and then to understand what are some of the plans that must be implemented, what some of the plans that were generated, let’s say, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, are they still in the process of being implemented in the city?
Then I would like to ask why some of the companies are not investing in our city, and why in the past 15 years, no corporations have been invested in the city. Then I have to ask myself, what are some of the issues that prohibit the city’s growth? What is the city’s (enticement)? You know, how can we entice companies to invest in the city?
And then what I’ll do is, because I am a public speaker (and) I also am an instructor (and) I love public speaking, that I would like to go to Washington, D.C. to advocate that we have manufacturers and other companies invest in the city. I would like to talk to NASA and talk to them and (see) how can we bring in innovation and technology that can reduce crime?
For example, it’s like the drone project that’s been created in Israel. They can see through walls, and they can detect if a group of kids have a gun. That we can stop before there’s a crime. It’s not big brother, it’s not that, it’s not overseeing houses, but it’s to prevent crime from starting. So I’d like to implement some technology from NASA, and also to understand what they’re doing over there.
The other one is technology. I’d like to be the hub of the Central Valley. For example, San Jose, what they did was they went to the east coast and they talked to developers, they talked to engineers over there … (into) bringing technology into the old part of San Jose. And that’s what I like to do. Same thing is to talk to them in the East Coast or other countries, wherever it’s going to be, and tell them, guess what? We got some cheap labor. We got some cheap land. And if you’d like to invest in our community, we’re willing to help. But this requires a person who has been out there like I have.
I’m involved in (the) Constitutionalists (for) California in Kingsburg. I’m involved in a Christian coalition. I’m involved in the Liberty Coalition in Clovis. I’m involved in the Republican Hispanic Coalition in Clovis, and I’m involved in other places. So because of my involvement, I am ready to go out there and hit the streets, talk to all these companies and bring innovation into our city.
That’s the first thing I’ll do, is the budget. Understand the crime, number three is trying to understand are there any businesses coming in and then go out there and market Parlier as much as possible.
Q: Who is supporting/endorsing your campaign, and who are the major funders of your campaign?
BANUELOS: The funders right now, I have my friends that funded. Restaurants here and there, little businesses and stuff. It’s nothing major, nothing major at all. The funding comes in, again, as I just started fundraising. So I bought my signs myself, and then from there I fundraised to pay the credit card. But there’s no companies that are big, (it’s) small friends that could give me some money.
Q: What do you see as the top three issues facing your local community right now? What would you do to address those issues?
BANUELOS: The first issue would be to tackle the budget. Right now, I believe that we’re writing checks without knowing that there’s money in the bank. We’re relying too much on some of the big businesses in town, which we should not do. We’re almost threaten(ing) them for them to cough up more money; for example, we have a company that’s given $450,000 to the city. They want $1.5 million now. You can’t do that.
Twenty years ago, the people were funding the city just the way it was, with all the taxes of the houses and the water and so on. Number two would be, again, to look at the city’s crime rate. There’s two ways to look at this one. One is to look at what they see to the public that they want the public to say,”Hey, everything’s OK.” Well, the other one (is) to understand where can we help out the kids to prevent crimes and so on.
I would also generate programs, not just for the kids who are in gangs, but also for the parents to be educated. That’s the reason, when I was on the school board, I advocated a lot for the kids to get their computers and so on and the parents. I used to be an instructor for the parents to teach them English as a second language. I taught them computers and so on. I taught here in Kerman and also in Parlier, that’s really important to get parent involvement in the city.
I believe also involvement with the churches is how we can go from street to street and talk to a lot of these kids and so on, and to advocate for parents to get involved with the city. Four is to look at companies. You know why companies have not invested in our city, to go out there and market the city of Parlier. Doesn’t matter where it is, East Coast to other countries to get these companies (that) are willing to pay a little more money than the minimum wage.
The city of Parlier has one of the highest unemployment rates in the United States. Well, why is that? Because it’s more of a seasonal town. I don’t want this to be a seasonal town. I want people to have good jobs with high wages, and then from there we also get housing, is another one. Number four is, how do we get affordable housing? Right now we do have the interest rate, I believe, like 7%, maybe 7.5%, and people right now can’t afford housing because of the high payments.
Well, there is a program that has like $25,000, $50,000 down, but yet the payment is still high because of the interest rate to get affordable housing. Right now in Parlier, the growth of housing, it’s almost zero, maybe 4%. We gotta get that housing being built here in Parlier more than it was before. But I’m not looking at low income. I’m looking at our high income to draw in a different population. The median wage is $35,000. We want to make the median wage into maybe $50,000 or $70,000 to bring in those fenced neighborhoods and so on. To have houses or to bring in a different kind of environment, into more of a gated community.
Oh, and the other one is we need to address the issue of the senior citizens. We have an increased number of senior citizens in Parlier, and we have to address the past issues and the cross to the markets and so on. A lot of these senior citizens, they don’t have the means to go to the markets. Some of them are in wheelchairs, and they’re there on the streets. We have to make a pathway. We have to do things better for senior citizens.
Also, you know, taxes are increasing more and they’re impacting our senior citizens population, … that’s another one that I’m looking at, too. Oh, the fifth one would be homelessness in the city. We used to have two or three people homeless in the city. Now we got about 15. We have an increase in about 50% increasing in this city.
I know how to implement (and) find spaces for the homeless. I did that in Fresno. I had two homes for the homeless people. They can get Social Security. They can get a stipend once a week, about $40, $50 every week. And then to get some of these homeless out off the streets, put them in homes that are vacant. There’s money to renovate these homes, and you don’t have to pay for a manager.
Manager gets free boarding to take care of the homeless. You can put two homeless per room. So you can have six. Imagine we got two homes, renovate them. Now we can get 12. Now we get everybody off the streets, we give them food and water, we give them shelter, and then we can also put them in the programs, and some of them can learn a trade.
That’s the other one. I would like to make an education system, a building, and eventually that building, which is different from other companies, eventually that building will be run by the homeless, which is teachers. The homeless become teachers, and now you can teach them the skills of carpentry, mechanics, electricians and so on. So you got to teach them a trade. You can’t just feed them all for the rest of your life, so you can give them a trade.
Q: What does the role of a city councilperson look like to you? How would you engage with the community and respond to residents’ needs?
BANUELOS: To be part of the city council is to interject programs and also to vote for the different initiatives, to look at what are the needs of the public. City council is to go around to businesses and tell them, what are some of your needs? What’s happening with your business? Is your business increasing in sales? If it’s not, how can we better this? Do we need to educate you, bring you to a different program?
Also, the job of a city council member is … marketing the city and to go out there, but that’s a little bit beyond more than the city council is to go out there, let’s say to Washington, D.C., or to other venues and talk to companies to sell the town. Now, that’s a little bit different.
When a person has a job, they can’t do that. Myself, I’m retired, so therefore I’m willing to spend my money to invest in Parlier, which is to go to the East Coast. I’ll pay my own ticket to go wherever it’s supposed to be. So the council also is a voice of the people to go out there, into the different businesses, citizens, and … to find solutions using the different skills of the engineers, the planners, also the city manager.
So if you get that voice of the public and to bring it out into the city council, and to say, what can we do? And we start to innovate, maybe a new practice in the city, also to work with the churches. City council is not just good for the businesses, but also for the churches. What are the needs of the churches? How do they see crime and how can we get involved with the churches to help better the public and better society and better the town.
Q: Anything else to add?
BANUELOS: I think a good one would be, for example, the impact of the city needs to balance off with the impact of the school. Now, both the school and the city have to join together, working in building the city as it grows. Now, if the city grows and the school does not, then there’s a major impact in the classroom. Instead of having 26 students, it might be 35; we did have that impact. We do have the impact when we have that migration from Texas into Parlier.
Now we have a whole different problem. Now we have the migration from the people that come from different countries into the United States. We’re seeing an influx of people come into the city now. Most of them are single people, not too many. There’s some kids, not as much, but the kids will come in. So we have to understand what is the impact of this migration coming from other countries. How is it going to influence, impact the city? Because we don’t have space.
We don’t have (space) right now, apartments are full and we have a problem with rents and homes. So we have to work as the city grows in population … (because) if the city starts to build more homes, it impacts the school. Now, if the school does not have the money or finds any kind of growth, then by time, what happens is that we as a city start to lose a lot of the money focus, and then we also have a lot of the businesses that won’t come to our city. So we’re looking at that.
We’re looking at talks about immigration and then homelessness, the health care. Now the health care in the city is doing a great job. We’re doing a fantastic job. The other ones, we’re looking at government accountability. Now government accountability is we as a city council, how we are being looked at, how we are being rated by other cities and potential businesses and potential restaurants to come in. So we have to have accountability with ourselves in government, accountability in the budget. As far as money, we have to have more people involved in committees to oversee the different budgets; we have to be more transparent.
