Garry Bredefeld has been elected to the Fresno City Council representing District 6 — the seat currently occupied by Mayor-elect Lee Brand.
As the country watched who would be elected the next President of the United States, a few dozen people were at Pardini’s Catering & Banquets waiting to see if Garry Bredefeld would be elected once again as District 6’s new council member.
Bredefeld served as the councilmember for District 6 from 1997-2001.
After serving one term, he opted not to run for a second term as a council member, but ran for mayor instead. Bredefeld was unsuccessful.
He is now looking to replace mayoral candidate Lee Brand and once again serve as District 6’s representative. He is running against Jeremy Pearce.
With 33 of 39 precincts reporting as of late Tuesday night, Bredefeld had nearly 65 percent of the vote.
Community member Rick Nadeau said he’s excited for Bredefeld to run District 6 again.
“With his history, his loyalty to the community and his core values, he’s going to do a great job for the community of Fresno,” Nadeau said. “He has a lot of great ideas.”
Bredefeld said the two most important issues he would address if elected would be the escalating crime and homelessness problems in Fresno — but they’re not the only ones.
“We have to make sure our highways are beautified rather than blighted as they are now,” he said. “That can’t be tolerated anymore. We have to build parks. We have to green our city. But we have to make sure it’s a safe city.”
Barbara Howsepian said Bredefeld has the right history to help our city.
“Garry was in office before and he really helped our city tremendously,” Howsepian said. “He has plans to fix the crime and the economy as well. He has great experience. He’s going to do what’s right for Fresno.”
Bredefeld said his past experience as a council member will definitely help if elected.
“I understand how local government works and I understand the importance of working with your colleagues and with the mayor to get things accomplished,” he said.
While Bredefeld and company waited for the local results to come in, they spent their time watching the live updates on the presidential election.
When asked about what his thoughts on the election were, Bredefeld said, “I think the apparent election of Donald Trump reflects how people are frustrated with Washington, D.C., how frustrated they are about not getting anything accomplished. With all the phony rhetoric that comes out of Washington, the taxes and regulations — Donald Trump spoke to that and I think that’s why people are supporting him.”
But regarding his own election, Bredefeld said, “The next step would be to get on the council and start to address the serious problems that we face.”
