FRESNO COUNTY – A supposedly apolitical policy on county celebrations has advanced, but some Fresno County residents fear a shift toward censorship and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments.
At the Aug. 5 Fresno County Board of Supervisors meeting, board members voted to draft a policy that will require holidays celebrated by county departments to first receive board approval. The motion was passed 3-2, with board members Garry Bredefeld, Nathan Magsig and Buddy Mendes in support, and Luis Chavez and Brian Pacheco in dissent.
It is currently unclear when the drafted policy will be brought back to the board.
The call to develop this policy was championed heavily in the meeting by Bredefeld, who cited the department of public health’s distribution of rainbow condoms and lube at this year’s pride celebration as an inappropriate use of taxpayer money. Pacheco affirmed that if money is to be spent by county departments for holidays and celebrations, then the board needs to approve it.
“We are celebrating events in this community all the time—we do majority proclamations—and if we sign those, department heads and departments are free to celebrate those things because this body has acknowledged it,” Bredefeld said. “But if we do not do that, then you don’t get free reign to promote some gender ideology, political ideology, because you like it. The buck stops here.”
This hearing proceeds the passage of Administrative Policy (AP) 80 at the July 8 meeting, which now requires county department heads to gain board approval before spending discretionary funds. At that same meeting, the board decided to hear direction from County Administrative Officer Paul Nerland on how county celebrations should be handled moving forward.
At the Aug. 5th meeting, Nerland outlined three options to help get the conversation started.
He first suggested that celebrations can follow the AP 80 model, meaning that the county will celebrate all holidays that are already approved or proclaimed, but any additional holidays will require board approval.
The second option Nerland suggested was that he himself be in charge of all holiday celebration decisions, with the board holding accountability for them.
The final option was for county departments to only celebrate holidays approved through resolutions and proclamations.
The public comment and supervisor discussion segments bounced back and forth between the three options, with supporters of board oversight arguing that the county supervisors have a responsibility to decide what the county represents, and dissenters arguing that the motion is targeted and ill-intentioned.
While the call for celebratory oversight is written to apply to all celebrations, the discussions made it apparent that many proponents of it seem to be focused on one group in particular.
Tammy McMahon, who identified herself as an elementary school teacher of 39 years, was the sole supporter of the motion during the public comment. She expressed her issues with the promotion of gender identity in libraries, which she feels “divides families” and yields “terrible atrocities.”
She specifically cited Chloe Cole, a Valley teen who transitioned at age 15 before later detransitioning and advocating against the procedure, as an example as to why the county shouldn’t promote celebrations or literature relating to the LGBTQ+ community.
“When the world says ‘love is love,’ I say ‘love is protecting the innocence of our kids’… please support Supervisor Bredefeld in controlling where our money goes to support what events,” McMahon said. “If they do not protect the innocence of our kids, let’s not do it.”
Russ Zokaites, assistant professor of music at Fresno State, followed McMahon in the public comment. He was in attendance with his husband and son, and expressed discomfort with McMahon’s rhetoric. Zokaites stated that the community of Fresno has been welcoming toward his family for the past three years, and hopes that the board will continue to foster that kind of environment.
“I think it’s really important that we maintain the mission of the county of being open, diverse and accepting of everyone, and that includes various celebrations,” Zokaites said.
During discussion amongst the supervisors, Bredefeld referred to the promotion of the LGBTQ+ movement as “Woke BS,” while in the same breath disparaging public libraries for furthering a “political agenda.”
This was an irony not lost on Supervisor Chavez.
“This is something very eerie for me, to try to censor or limit people and say that one group of ideals and values are okay, but the other ones are not and therefore should be censored,” Chavez said. “I think that’s counterproductive to a representative democracy, and that’s really at the heart of my issue with this.”
Chavez went on to explain that it would be challenging to codify all of the holidays that are celebrated by various ethnic, religious or other groups, and that attempting to do so would be an unwise use of the board’s time.
Chavez also noted that the current members of the board will not always hold their positions, and he feels it best to let departments do necessary outreach without the restrictions of differing board stances.
Pacheco echoed Chavez’s sentiments during his comment.
“I believe that we represent all the people, and we should be neutral up here and not be political,” Pacheco said. “This tends to go political.”
Toward the end of the board’s discussion, Pacheco noted that while Bredefeld was hyper-focused on pride celebrations and the showcasing of LGBTQ+ literature in libraries, he is concerned about everything else. He read off the list of pre-approved federal holidays and agreed with Chavez that the county is too broad to approve every celebration outside of the already-listed 12.
Magsig tried to take a more neutral approach, stating that while he maintains the importance of Fresno County’s diversity, there needs to be some form of oversight on what is outwardly supported by the county. He used the examples of Halloween and “Porn Week” to illustrate his point.
“In the absence of any kind of policy that this board sets, if a department had felt that it was appropriate and they were reaching a segment of constituents, then what’s to keep anything from happening?” Magsig said. “I do support this, and we must be all inclusive.”
Magsig pointed to the numerous proclamations and resolutions that are passed at each meeting, and expressed that there are opportunities for any celebration to be honored should the board approve them.
Board Chair Mendes was the ultimate deciding factor, giving the third vote to pursue Nerland’s first option of applying the AP 80 model to celebration-related decision making.
It will now be up to Nerland to draft a more concrete policy which will then be voted on at a future board meeting, though there’s currently no indication of when this might be.
