Brand to bring motivation to valley

For a period of time, the depletion of the economy has taken a toll on many areas of America’s cities, including Fresno. However, from unemployment rates to poverty, it is clear Fresno’s economy is beginning to grow.

The end of a presidential and local city council term has brought new leaders into White House and Fresno oval offices. Winner of the Fresno mayoral election, Lee Brand, takes the podium with a wave of intensity that will surely begin a motivation for change in a poverty stricken city.

A group of Feather staff members traveled to Fresno City Hall to interview newly elected Mayor Lee Brand. Brand requested an interview with the staff and agreed to meet with Feather journalists, a photojournalist and a Feather videographer, Jan. 24.

A new sense of hope rallies future plans for Fresno, a hope that will bring together a community stronger than before. With the appointment of new policies and plans, Brand intends to link hands with our neighbors and create an environment that will invite everyone to become connected.

Rather than only establish these policies that Brand strives to implement, he wants to make sure that the citizens are just as involved. In the first 100 days of his term, Brand hopes to end problems concerning substandard housing to create a more safe and healthy environment for citizens.

“We are going to do a rental housing inspection ordinance,” Brand said during an exclusive Feather interview at Fresno City Hall, Jan. 25. “It was written very carefully and thoroughly. I took a lot of input from different sides of the coin. The final product is a reasonable effort that will not punish good landlords, and will identify the bad landlords and focus our limited resources on those landlords like the hotel California type of properties. We are trying to solve a problem in Fresno of substandard housing.”

Seeing the type of tension and conflict that has arose in the past year concerning public safety, Brand plans to expand the police force but also create a public safety board that will build a stronger relationship with the community.

“We are going to develop a citizen’s public safety advisory board,” Mayor Brand said. “We are going to implement community-based policing. It will take about two years to do that. We are going to connect the community to be closer to the police department. We are going to de-escalate a lot of tensions by bringing the police department closer to all of our citizens.”

Considering Fresno’s location in the San Joaquin Valley, many different cultures and diversities take root in its communities. Bringing together these cultures for common awareness will not only bring a closer neighborhood but a stronger city according to Brand.

While some of these community plans seem generated for an older generation, Brand hopes to include the millennials. In the local school districts, there may be students who do not have stable home environments which contribute to high school dropout rates. This decision has affected the way these students try to get a job. Job opportunities are not as high and Brand seeks to provide them with a hope that they can succeed in acquiring post-secondary employment.

“One thing that is missing in Fresno is career technical education,” Brand said. “Right now, some high school students can’t receive a technical education. Some are dropping out and getting into crime or working minimum wage jobs.

“Career technical education will give them the opportunities not only in construction trades but also medical trades,” Brand continued. “There are the jobs out there, we’ve got to find a way to get young people that aren’t going to go on to college into these good paying jobs.”

Many students in high school presume they do not share a role in serving their communities. However, Brand sees the high school student as an important part of the community. According to Brand, they possess many opportunities in ways of giving back to their communities.

“There is a multitude of opportunities for high students to serve their community,” Brand said. “They can go down to the Poverello House to serve a turkey, help clean up a park or do an internship at City Hall. We would love to have some students come down here and get an idea of what goes on.

“Over my eight years on the council, I’ve met a lot of good people in nonprofits and faith-based organizations that do so many good things,” Brand continued. “In my time here, I would like to better organize faith-based organizations into one unified group, so that when they combine and collaborate, they can do a lot more. There are a lot of people in churches across the city that do a lot of good things.”

After early struggles with social media in his campaign, Brand now uses social media platforms as a tool to connect with the community. He sees the importance of both traditional media and social media. Brand and his staff we determines what to tweet with the guidance of the communications director.

“Nowadays if you’re an elected official, you almost have to have a presence on social media,” Brand said. “I am so busy, so I have Mark, the communications director who runs my social media accounts. That’s his expertise. We have to communicate what we are doing. We are about to role out a major policy initiative it’s going to be rolled out with traditional media sources, but we are also using Facebook, Twitter and so on.”

Brand hopes that his story and lessons inspire the next generation to be fruitful and prosperous. Mayor Brand stresses the importance of taking risks to succeed. He believes that students should find a career they enjoy and pursue it. Brand wants students to be bold and not underestimate their abilities. He calls students to find a career that they enjoy and never settle for a job that just pays the bills.

For more top 5 articles read, Alumni attend inauguration, witness history.

This author can be reached via Twitter: Jennifer King and via email: Jennifer King.

This writer can be reached via Twitter: Samuel Cross and via email: Samuel Cross.

Feather staff interviews Fresno Mayor Lee Brand from The Feather Online on Vimeo.