GV Wire to Host Fresno County District 4 Supervisor Forum April 13

When Ernest "Buddy" Mendes announced he would not seek re-election after holding the District 4 seat since 2015, he left behind a supervisorship that shapes daily life for tens of thousands of people spread across agricultural towns, small cities, and unincorporated communities where no city government exists to fill the gap. On April 13, the candidates who want to replace him will face each other publicly for the first time in a GV Wire-organized forum, and the specific powers of that seat are exactly what District 4 voters should have in mind when they tune in.

Former Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims, Huron Mayor Rey Leon, Parlier Mayor Alma Beltran, and Selma Unified School District Trustee Nick Sahota have confirmed they will appear at the forum. A fifth candidate, Charlie Soto, is also in the race. GV Wire organized the event in partnership with CMAC, the Fresno-based Community Media Access Collaborative. Bill McEwen will moderate. Residents unable to attend in person can watch via live-stream on GV Wire's Facebook page.

The next District 4 supervisor will hold authority that goes well beyond setting county policy in the abstract. That supervisor casts votes on the county sheriff's budget and how law enforcement resources are distributed across hundreds of rural miles. They approve or reject land use permits for agricultural and commercial projects. They control road repair allocations for unincorporated communities like Cantua Creek, Three Rocks, and El Porvenir, where residents have shown up to county meetings for years asking for basic street fixes that heavy agricultural equipment has spent decades cracking apart. In District 4, the supervisor is the closest thing those communities have to a mayor.

Three issues have dominated candidate conversation heading into the forum. Water is the sharpest. Westlands Water District has moved forward with a plan to convert up to 136,000 acres of fallowed farmland on the county's westside into solar energy production, a transformation that carries direct consequences for farming jobs, groundwater supply, and the economic identity of communities like Huron, where Leon has championed solar farming as an emerging industry. At a February forum organized by the Fresno Area Hispanic Foundation, Sahota framed the underlying tension: "Water is not a political issue in the Central Valley; it's a survival issue."

The westside solar conversion, centered on land that Westlands Water District has fallowed, raises questions about groundwater injection, property tax revenue, and what the district's agricultural landscape looks like in a generation. Mims, whose background is in countywide public safety rather than municipal governance, brings a different lens to those conversations than Leon or Beltran, who have managed small cities where water and infrastructure decisions arrive at city hall daily.

Public safety rounds out the flashpoint trio. Mims's tenure leading the county's law enforcement agency gives her an obvious argument on sheriff's resource allocation and rural policing priorities. Her opponents, rooted in smaller cities, will likely push a competing frame on how patrol coverage reaches unincorporated areas that can't advocate for themselves through a city council.

Voters attending April 13 should arrive ready to push each candidate past biography and into specifics: Where do they stand on conditions the county should require before approving the westside solar conversion? Which unincorporated road projects reach the top of their first-year list, and what is the funding source? How would they allocate sheriff resources between incorporated cities and rural unincorporated stretches? And what role should the supervisor play in decisions that fall under Westlands' jurisdiction but land squarely on District 4's communities?

The primary is June 2. Any candidate clearing 50 percent avoids a November runoff, which means the April 13 forum arrives early enough to matter.