Who governs the Central Valley

Every governing body we track across the eight counties of the San Joaquin Valley, what it decides, and where to follow it.

We track 23 bodies so far, out of an estimated 300 to 500 or more across the region. Eight counties, 62 incorporated cities, and several hundred school and special districts. This page is a working directory, not a census.

Every body named below has its own page. Follow the link in the table for that body's meeting rule, video channel, agenda portal, minutes archive, public comment rules with their deadlines and time limits, contacts, and an explicit list of what we have not confirmed about it. This page is the index; the body pages carry the detail.

About that estimate

Two numbers here are verified and the rest is not.

Eight counties is exact: San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare, and Kern. 62 incorporated cities comes from Fresno State's Community and Regional Planning Center, which states "Within the 8 counties there are 62 cities, 123 census designated places, and 443 unincorporated areas." (source)

So 70 general purpose governments exist in this market before a single school district or special district is counted. The total, once school boards, irrigation and water districts, groundwater sustainability agencies, fire and hospital and cemetery districts, and the councils of governments are added, runs to several hundred. We have not established that number, and we are not going to guess at it. Getting it right requires pulling the Census of Governments or California's own special district financial data, which is a data request rather than a web search.

Until then, 300 to 500 or more is an estimate and is labeled as one.

Counties

All eight county boards in the market are tracked. Each has five supervisors elected by district. A board of supervisors adopts the county budget, passes county ordinances, decides land use for unincorporated areas, and oversees county departments, including the sheriff's budget, public health, and social services.

If you live in an unincorporated part of a county, and 443 unincorporated communities exist across this market, your board of supervisors is your local government in the way a city council would be inside city limits.

Full sourcing and the caveats on Fresno and Merced are on when they meet.

Named supervisors

Verified against each county's own site on 2026-08-15. Names change through elections, resignations, and appointments, and a stale name reads exactly like a current one.

Fresno County (source): District 1 Brian Pacheco, District 2 Garry Bredefeld (Chairman), District 3 Luis Chavez (Vice Chairman), District 4 Ernest "Buddy" Mendes, District 5 Nathan Magsig.

Kern County (source): District 1 Phillip Peters (Chair), District 2 Chris Parlier, District 3 Jeff Flores, District 4 David Couch, District 5 Leticia Perez.

San Joaquin County (source): District 1 Mario Gardea, District 2 Paul Canepa, District 3 Sonny Dhaliwal (Chair), District 4 Steven J. Ding (Vice-Chair), District 5 Robert Rickman.

Stanislaus County (source): District 1 Buck Condit, District 2 Vito Chiesa (Chairman), District 3 Terry Withrow (Vice-Chairman), District 4 Mani Grewal, District 5 Channce Condit.

Supervisors for Tulare, Merced, Kings, and Madera counties are not established here yet.

Do not take these names from a search engine. On 2026-08-15, aggregator and search summaries returned Steve Brandau for Fresno County District 2 and Sal Quintero for District 3. The county's own page says Garry Bredefeld and Luis Chavez. Two wrong names, from sources that looked authoritative. Everything above was read off the county's own roster.

Cities

Two of these mayors are not elected as mayor. Visalia and Clovis rotate the office among sitting council members, so the mayor is a council member holding a title rather than a separately elected executive.

• Visalia: council members "select one member to serve as mayor and one to serve as vice-mayor." Brett Taylor holds the District 2 seat; Liz Wynn is vice-mayor. The city does not publish the rotation term dates, so the term end is not established.
• Clovis: the council elects a mayor and a mayor pro tem "for two years." Mouanoutoua has served since December 2024, and Diane Pearce is mayor pro tem. A rotation is due in December 2026. Clovis is also moving from at-large to district-based council elections beginning in fall 2026, with full implementation by

The other six mayors are elected citywide.

A general election falls on November 3, 2026, after this page's verification date. Modesto, Visalia, Merced, and Turlock all hold municipal elections that day, and winners take office in December 2026 or January 2027. Every name above is current as of 2026-08-15 and several will not be current in January.

School districts

Kern High School District is a high-school-only district, not a unified one. It runs the high schools for a large part of Kern County while separate elementary districts, including Bakersfield City School District, run the grades below. If you are looking for the body that governs a Bakersfield elementary school, it is not this one, and Bakersfield City School District is not yet tracked.

Misty Her is superintendent of Fresno Unified (source). Superintendents of the other five districts are not established here yet.

Regional agencies

San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District Governing Board. The only body tracked here whose jurisdiction covers the entire market. It regulates stationary sources of air pollution across all eight counties, in the region with the worst air quality in the country, and it is the body that writes and enforces the Valley's air rules.

It is also structurally unusual: it is a board made of other bodies' members. Its roster seats a county supervisor from each of the eight counties, plus city representatives and appointed public and physician members. As of 2026-08-15 the chair is Supervisor Amy Shuklian of Tulare County and the vice chair is Supervisor Bobby Macaulay of Madera County (roster).

Its meetings run simultaneously in three cities over video teleconference: Fresno, Modesto, and Bakersfield. No other body here does that.

Tribal governments

Seven federally recognized tribes have governments in this region: the Tule River Indian Tribe, Santa Rosa Rancheria (Tachi Yokut), Table Mountain Rancheria, Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians, Big Sandy Rancheria of Western Mono Indians, North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians, and Cold Springs Rancheria of Mono Indians.

These are sovereign governments, not community organizations. None is yet tracked here.

Not yet tracked

The 54 remaining incorporated cities, including Tracy, Manteca, Lodi, Madera, Hanford, Tulare, Porterville, Delano, Ceres, Los Banos, and Ridgecrest. Most school districts, including Bakersfield City School District. Every planning commission and zoning board.

And the special districts, which in this market are not a footnote. Water is the region's defining political question, and the bodies that decide it are the irrigation districts, the water districts (Westlands, Kern County Water Agency, Friant Water Authority), and the groundwater sustainability agencies created under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. Also the councils of governments (Fresno COG, Kern COG), the transit districts, and the county LAFCOs.

Verified 2026-08-15. The government's own page is authoritative.