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Fresno Mayor on ICE on city streets

Jerry Dyer is the mayor of Fresno. He was elected after 40 years in the city’s police department. Listen to what he has to say about ICE agents infiltrating cities.

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Transcription

David Martin: This is the good government show.

Jerry Dyer: Yeah, I did, 40 years in the Fresno Police Department, the last 18 as a police chief before becoming the mayor of Fresno. So we have to get people to realize there’s a lot more good than there is bad. You know, at the local level, mayors get to hear things firsthand. If there’s a concern in the community, we’re going to hear about it pretty quickly.

That may not be the case at the state and federal level. If we did not have the farmworkers in our community that generally come from Mexico, we would not be able to produce the amount of food that we do across the nation. When you’ve been in public service and you feel the call to continue to be in public service, you can’t say no.

I think there’s this misnomer out there that people in government don’t care.

David Martin: Ice agents are now very visible on America’s streets. Their actions have led directly to two deaths and protests across the country. The mayor of Fresno, California, is also the city’s former police chief, and then an exceptional position to talk about current policing in America’s cities. Welcome to the Good Government show. I’m Dave Martin. First, help us share the message of good government by liking us and sharing us where we are on social media.

Make sure to review us and send our show everywhere. We all need to talk about good government. I heard Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer speak at the recent Conference of Mayors during a breakout session called Current Issues in Policing. What better person to talk about policing and the incursion of ice on the nation’s city streets? While Ice agents have made headlines in some cities.

They have not been as active in his California city. But Fresno is in the agricultural Central Valley of California. It’s the state’s breadbasket. As the mayor will tell you, they have a lot of immigrant farmworkers there. And it will also tell you they’re scared. Scared to go to work, to church and to send their kids to school. And we talk about crime or actually the reduction in crime.

We talked about why some people don’t think crime is down when it actually is. When Mayor Dyer talks about law enforcement and immigration policy that affects his residents, he draws on his experience as a police chief, a police officer, and now mayor. So it’s a viewpoint that’s certainly worth listening to. So listen. Coming up, Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer.

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Other people in government are really trying to do the right thing. That’s good news for lefties. Listen, we’re listening now. Welcome to the Good Government show. I’m happy to have with me Jerry Dyer. He is the mayor of Fresno, California. Welcome to the Good Government show.

Jerry Dyer: Thank you. David. Thanks for having me on.

David Martin: Thank you. Thanks for coming. You just finished off a panel discussion here at the Conference of Mayors on Current Issues in Policing. Right. And I’ve heard you talk a couple of times today at the conference and definitely wanted to talk to you about a little bit about policing and your background. I think we should establish you were a police chief for 18 years.

Jerry Dyer: Yeah, I did 40 years in the Fresno Police Department, the last 18 as the police chief before becoming the mayor of Fresno.

David Martin: Did you have every job in the police department?

Jerry Dyer: I worked a lot of good assignments from Swat. I promoted all the way up from Sergeant, all the way to assistant chief to chief. And, But I got a lot of tactical experience. Major narcotics, undercover assignments, affairs, detective. It was part of our tactical team. Yes.

David Martin: I always wanted to be a detective. I guess being a reporter, you know, you’re sort of what you. Actually, yes. So current issues in policing was something that you just moderated with the mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, Red smiley. What is the current issue in policing?

Jerry Dyer: Well, I think there’s a lot of issues that are confronting.

David Martin: There’s a lot I want to see where you start.

Jerry Dyer: So I would say, you know, by and large, crime is down across America. And, police agents are cities. And that’s, good policing. That’s community engagement. Crime is very cyclical. But we we’re seeing the, violent crime and property crime trends, go down year after year. The problem is, I think some time for.

David Martin: Several years now.

Jerry Dyer: For several years, probably the last 4 or 5 years. Right. The perception of crime hasn’t followed, in that many folks in many jurisdictions across the country still see crime as a major problem. And I think it’s because the fact is, the things that bother them, the things that they see day in and day out, are quality of life issues.

Jerry Dyer: A homeless person in front of their business, trash along the side of the road. Anything that, a theft that’s occurring from their business or their car being broken into. Those are the things that most people, on a day to day basis or plagued by, which is why they still see jurisdictions as having higher crime rates.

David Martin: So while the homicide rates are down, that doesn’t necessarily mean to them, to a lot of citizens, when they go to a downtown city and they see trash and homeless. Doesn’t matter what the other numbers are.

Jerry Dyer: Right? Exactly. The, quality of life issues in terms of things that people are bothered by on a day to day basis, that that’s what they see in violent crime. Very seldom very few people are impacted by violent crime.

David Martin: Right now I’m going to ask you about one of the panelists asked you just in the session we were at. So what do you do to change the narrative, to change the perception?

Jerry Dyer: Well, part of that narrative is going to, or the perception is going to take time.

David Martin: Come on, the good government show and talk about the government.

Jerry Dyer: Okay. Talk about good government here. But the truth is we we don’t do a really good job of marketing in law enforcement successes. We, in city government in general. So really, it’s about marketing some of the good police work. Continually reminding people that that crime is down. We still have work to do. But continually marketing that.

Because what does get marketed is crime. Yeah. And it’s been marketed on social media, has been marketed on, mainstream media. Whenever there’s a shooting in our city, it’s broadcast 7 or 8 times on different stations. So that’s what stays in the minds of people. So we have to counter that with good marketing, and good communication to the community.

David Martin: The local news sort of mantra is if it bleeds, it leads.

Jerry Dyer: It bleeds, it leads, and it does.

David Martin: So what do you do as mayor to combat that? You know, 1 in 1000, one and 100 crimes, but it gets the headlines.

Jerry Dyer: Well, we try to. I don’t want to see, manipulate the media, but we try to shape with the news. Stories are okay. So if we’re feeding good stories to the media, they’re less likely to be so focused on the bad stories. And I think in human nature, we have a tendency to focus on the bad. So we have to get people to realize there’s a lot more good than there is bad and good people to to not be.

So focus on on the bad stories.

David Martin: We are recording the show in the end of January. One of the topics in America, in the world, and certainly at this conference is Ice agents and what’s been going on at the federal level. And how they’re impacting on the local level. What’s the conversation that you’re hearing at the Conference of Mayors? What are you hearing from other mayors, especially in the cities that have been affected.

Jerry Dyer: But mayors in general, whether they’re, Republican or Democrat mayors support good immigration policy, immigration reform, securing the borders, which I think our president’s done a good job of securing our borders, giving people an opportunity to become US citizens, that have come to this country. Unfortunately, we have a lot of work to do there because it takes far too long, in many cases 20 years if they can get citizenship at all.

And and the other is we agree that criminals who are undocumented need to be removed from our country. They’re serious criminals. They need to be removed. The manner in which that occurs is really what’s caused concern across America and in local government. Our number one priority is public safety, keeping communities safe. And what we’re seeing in our communities as a result of the presence of of Ice and the manner in which some of these tactics are being employed, is that we’re seeing a lot of civil unrest.

And unfortunately, that’s led to, a division in our cities. The fact that we have to utilize a lot of our resources to police these protests. And so it’s created a challenge for local law enforcement, local government.

David Martin: And the people have a right to protest, and they.

Jerry Dyer: Should people have a right to protest. And, you know, we encourage people to protest if they have concerns to do so peacefully. Obviously. Yeah. But for whatever reason, these protests are, people are very passionate, and there’s a lot of issues that are occurring now that’s turning physical, right?

David Martin: What do you do about that?

Jerry Dyer: Well, first and foremost, we have our collective voices. Mayors try to encourage, the administration to make sure that officers or Ice agents that are being deployed are well trained in de-escalation.

David Martin: Are they? Do you think they are?

Jerry Dyer: Not based on what I’ve seen. I’m sure that there are good Ice agents out there. They’re very compassionate. They’re de-escalating situations. But many of the ones that have been captured on video and played in the media and social media, the tactics are, are less than desirable, right?

David Martin: So as a mayor, what can you do to turn the heat down, I guess?

Jerry Dyer: Well, it’s number one is to make sure that we are having our voices heard. Yeah. Do you.

David Martin: Feel like they are? Do you feel like your voices be heard?

Jerry Dyer: I hope so, I you know, I know the, mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, he had a conversation with the president. Yes, last week. And as a result of that, it seemed to do some good. You know, at the local level, mayors get to hear things firsthand. If there’s a concern in the community, we’re going to hear about it pretty quickly.

That may not be the case at the state and federal level. Yeah. And, and and perhaps the president.

David Martin: Has they see you on the street or jewelry store. Hey, Jerry. But I got something you.

Jerry Dyer: I think, you know, sometimes that message is slow to reach, Washington, D.C., and that direct conversation that, the president had with the with the with the mayor the other day seems to be, maybe, maybe we’re going to start seeing some of the things that we’ve seen, them back away from.

David Martin: Are you optimistic?

Jerry Dyer: I want to be optimistic. I’m an optimistic person. And I hope things get better. In in communities. I hope that that the message is loud and clear from America. More and more people, are who are in full support of deportation of criminals. Yep. Starting to lose support of Ice in local communities because of the the conflict that is occurring between Ice and community members.

I’ve said long ago, if you don’t have the permission of communities to police it, you’ll be rejected. And that’s what we’re seeing with Ice right now.

David Martin: So you’re in the Central Valley of California? Yes. And this is a very agricultural neighborhood area, a lot of migrant workers. What are you advising your police officers? And, you know, is there a message that you would spread to other cities like yours?

Jerry Dyer: Well, we are we have a long history of Fresno working with our undocumented community. We do not ask for their immigration status. We’re not in the business of enforcing local immigration laws. If you are a criminal, you’re going to be arrested, placed in jail. And and if, Ice decides to deport you, that’s on ice. Okay. So that continues to be our policy.

We’re sharing with our, our officers that if, if there is some type of a civil dispute happening as a result of the presence of ice, and we, you know, we have to go. Officers have to respond due to keep people safe. And so that’s that’s really the role of, local government.

David Martin: Okay. If in your area, in your region, like I said, a huge migrant workforce, are you concerned for the people that you know are living in your area?

Jerry Dyer: I’m concerned, based on the fact that they’re concerned, there’s a lot of fear in our community, from folks that are farm workers, people that we know have been in our, in our city for decades. They’ve been hard working. They’ve raised their family there. Today, they’re afraid to to go to the doctor’s appointment.

They’re afraid to go to work in some respects.

David Martin: Probably sending their kids to school.

Jerry Dyer: And afraid to get separated from their kids by sending their kids to school and the churches. So there’s a lot of fear that that is going on. Now, if people knew that the only way they were going to be detained and deported is if they were criminals. Yeah. And they were undocumented. I think there’d be a lot less fear.

But that’s not what people believe today. They believe that anybody in this city, that is undocumented faces a good likelihood of being deported if they’re detained or if they’re stopped by.

David Martin: And even if they’re documented.

Jerry Dyer: Even in some cases, even if they’re documented. I just had a reporter today told me that when they go out now, they carry their passport so they can prove that they’re a U.S. citizen. That’s never happened.

David Martin: And in some cases, even that doesn’t matter.

Jerry Dyer: Correct.

David Martin: Yeah.

Jerry Dyer: Yeah. So I think we just need to take a breath in America. We need to revisit how we’re going to be doing immigration enforcement, and let’s start all over if we can.

David Martin: Do you have a good government solution for this?

Jerry Dyer: I don’t yeah. All I, all I know is we cannot turn a blind eye to things that are occurring in our communities that we need to address as mayors. And that’s what we’re trying to do collectively and vocally regarding the the issue of Ice in our communities.

David Martin: And if you didn’t have some of these farmworkers, what would happen.

Jerry Dyer: If we did not have the farmworkers in our community that generally come from Mexico? We would not be able to produce the amount of food that we do across the nation. We are number one in the country and producing agriculture and fruit from Fresno. And what is.

David Martin: What what’s what are you what’s the main crop?

Jerry Dyer: We, a lot of, almonds, grapes, citrus, we we really have, a wide variety of, of crops, but generally nuts.

David Martin: This is the agricultural breadbasket of California. That’s it.

Jerry Dyer: From roots and fruits come from Fresno.

David Martin: Yeah, nuts and fruits, which you. All right. You’re not answering. That would be, I see you left. That would alone. When you talk with other mayors here at the conference, what is there any like, seen that you’ve seen emerge?

Jerry Dyer: Well, number one is, you know, there we have a housing crisis in America still. Right. And the need for the federal government to pay closer attention to that crisis, to do some things that would be helpful to allow us to, accelerate our housing to local communities. Sometimes that’s increased funding. Sometimes that may just be, you know, lessening some of the requirements from, from Nepa.

And, and so we’re that’s number one, I would say also just trying to work with federal government on policies that are very impactful at the local level. Again, it could be housing, could be homeless, it could be public safety issues. It could be issues dealing, dealing with ice. But there’s a lot of issues that are confronting us locally.

David Martin: If anybody got a great solution.

Jerry Dyer: I think, from a number of solutions that have been out there, we’ve heard from from some of the mayors, but a lot of it has to do with, lessening the restrictions that we face in local government and a lot of areas, one of those being housing.

David Martin: What would you like to see done and what are you working on when it comes to housing personally?

Jerry Dyer: You know, I know in Fresno, developers have a hard time building because sometimes your projects don’t pencil out. They’re they’re not profitable. They’re not profitable because sometimes they have to, if they’re going to accept government money, then there has to be prevailing wage. That prevailing wage causes their labor costs to go up to where they can’t afford to do the project.

Sometimes they can’t get the financing that they need to complete a project. We try to step in a local government, find gap, financing most and all, all the money that comes from federal government is geared towards affordable housing. Affordable housing in and of itself is not going to solve the housing crisis. We also need market rate housing, and we need to find ways that we can, subsidize market rate housing as well, without penalizing developers.

David Martin: So 40 years in law enforcement in the Fresno Police Department, 18 as police chief, I’m guessing you could have retired and gone fishing. What made you run from there?

Jerry Dyer: You know, I felt it was a calling at that time. I felt a burning sensation inside. I wanted to retire and travel. I’ve been telling my wife, my wife and I’ve been married for 45 years. I’ve been telling her the vast majority of, my life. Wait till I retire. We’re going to travel and see the world.

I got five grandkids. Yeah. And so, everything was good. And then. But I tell you, when when you’ve been in public service and you feel the call to continue to be in public service, you can’t say no.

David Martin: You are probably the fourth or fifth, mayor I’ve had on the show who is a former police chief. What is it about being a police chief that makes you a good man?

Jerry Dyer: I believe it’s, the experience that you bring into office. You’ve dealt with just about every single crisis you could face. You’re used to dealing with emergencies, and, you know, you don’t get rattled. You can’t afford to hear rattled. When a crisis comes, you respond, you’re used to being decisive and making decisions. You’re used to, being a leader, okay?

And I think all of those things are critical. I but I will say, I will say this, going from police chief to mayor requires a transition, because when you’re a police chief, you’re more in tune with giving direction. Okay. And, when you know.

David Martin: Where this is going. Yeah.

Jerry Dyer: When you become a mayor, you you have to build more relationships with council members.

David Martin: Is that hard to figure out?

Jerry Dyer: A trust, took about eight months for me. Really? Yeah, but I realized if I was going to get something done, I needed my council to be with me.

David Martin: So you had a little gesture. You’re thinking a little bit from the chief.

Jerry Dyer: I couldn’t change him. I had to change me.

David Martin: All right. And have you changed? Yeah, I.

Jerry Dyer: Have, all.

David Martin: Right. So now we’re going to get to the easy part. So the.

Jerry Dyer: Hard part. Right? Right.

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After you get done with this episode, hear more good government stories with our friends at How to Really Run a City for mayors. Kasim Reed of Atlanta and Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, and their co-host, journalist and author Larry Platt talk with guests and other mayors about how to really get stuff done in cities around the nation. Check them out where you’re listening now or through their nonprofit news site, The Philadelphia Citizen.

Dot org slash podcasts. So we have a questionnaire I like to ask all mayors, we start with the hardest question. First, define good government. What is good government?

Jerry Dyer: Good government for me is one that allows officials to serve the community without all of the encumbrances or restrictions that can be placed on them from government, in and of itself. So, good government is being able to do things efficiently, effectively maximizing, taxpayer dollars. And that’s not always the case. Sometimes government has to go through a procurement process that ultimately ends up spending more tax dollars than they would have if they could do it, like the private sector.

Okay, the challenges there’s been a lot of things happen in government over the years where they’ve abused that authority, they’ve abused spending authority. So there has to be more checks and balances on government. Those checks and balances cost money.

David Martin: When you were a police chief, you had a budget that you had to work with, but you could do stuff, that you felt was necessary within your budget. As mayor, you don’t have that, I guess. Freedom. Do you know what a big adjustment it is?

Jerry Dyer: You know, and I wasn’t, the type of police chief that wanted to work within the rules of of government, because, you know, if I saw a need, I would I would try to meet that need. I got to raise money through my foundation. And then, you know, we built an entire real time crime center, without my mayor knowing about it, because I did it with private money.

And, I just think sometimes, as you, you know, in government, you got to do those things, okay?

David Martin: If people are frustrated with the government, specifically your mayoralty, what should they do?

Jerry Dyer: Look me out of office. Okay? But before they did that, I would like to, meet with them. I’m, Also, I have a, open door in my office to hear from people, hear their concerns within reason. But ultimately, if you don’t like a local mayor, you have the opportunity in four years to vote them out.

David Martin: And in the middle of those four years, what should you do?

Jerry Dyer: Have your voice heard? Okay, I know mayor wants people protesting in front of their city hall. You can’t. There’s a way to get, mayors attention, local governments attention where they may not be able to get a state officials attention and, come to City hall, have their voice heard.

David Martin: All right. What do you do to public service? And I mean, for 40 years and police and the police department, what drew you to public service and kept.

Jerry Dyer: You in it? Initially? What drew me to, public safety, was I could not accept when people, who could not defend themselves were being victimized generally. Women, children and seniors. That was something I just couldn’t, I couldn’t handle when, domestic violence, elder abuse, child abuse, those are the things that truly drew me into to law enforcement.

The desire to protect people who were not able to protect themselves.

David Martin: Did you always think that you would eventually run for political office?

Jerry Dyer: No, no, I hate politics. I never wanted to be the mayor.

David Martin: Okay. But yet.

Jerry Dyer: In fact, people that came to me when I was nearing retirement and asked me to run for mayor, it would it would upset me. And, in fact, I responded in a very negative fashion to those people. And I said, I don’t want to be the mayor. I’ll never be the mayor. And, never say never. Never say.

David Martin: Never. You learned. You learned the hard way.

Jerry Dyer: And here I am.

David Martin: So you’ve been reelected once?

Jerry Dyer: Yes.

David Martin: All right. Who inspires you? Do you have a political hero?

Jerry Dyer: In terms of political heroes, I don’t know. I can point to anyone. I will say there’s a lot of fellow mayors that, I look up to. David Holt, our president, being one of them. He is somebody.

David Martin: That the conference in Oklahoma City.

Jerry Dyer: He’s he’s a guy. Has been a long time mayor in, Oklahoma City. He’s somebody I, I look up to Todd Gloria from San Diego. He’s, again, somebody that I think has done well as a as a mayor. And there’s a number of other people that I, I would say that I, I admire, I don’t know that they that necessarily that, they inspire me so much because they’re in government.

David Martin: Okay. You’ve been mayor for five years now. What would you like people to know about governments that they don’t know?

Jerry Dyer: I would want people to know how hard people in government work. I think there’s this misnomer out there that people in government don’t care. Or maybe they’re in it for personal reasons, and there’s a lot of politicians in it for the wrong reason. Personal reason. But from what I’ve seen, the vast majority of the people, especially at the mayor level, they’re in it for the right reason.

They work hard, they’re tireless, they care about their cities. And, they’re they’re there to make a difference. And I wish more people knew that.

David Martin: What are you doing and what can be done to promote government or to restore people’s faith in government?

Jerry Dyer: Well, I think the, what I try to do, as a mayor, Fresno is to be visible, to be accessible. You know, you can ask anyone in Fresno, I show up, I show up for events, and, and we market what we’re doing in Fresno. I have a great marketing team that really on a daily basis, we’re marketing things that we’re doing, whether it’s paving streets, building a park, building a senior center, the things that we’re doing, we want people to know, and we market that every single day.

David Martin: What’s a better job being police chief for being their.

Jerry Dyer: Police chief was a question. You know, as a police chief, you get to see immediate results, okay? Whereas as a mayor, sometimes the projects or the things you’re working on it, it takes 5 or 6 years before you see the outcome.

David Martin: What’s the best part of being mayor?

Jerry Dyer: I think the best part of being mayor is probably all of the different things that you’re involved in with the airport, you know, transportation issues, parks, having the ability to make your city better beyond public safety.

David Martin: Okay. So are you learning on the job about parks departments and sanitation?

Jerry Dyer: You know, I bought like I told my wife one time, I, I don’t I don’t care about garbage and water and parks, but when you become a mayor, you better care about them real fast. And, I’m very, very proud of what we’re doing, in all of those areas. And quite frankly, now that I’m a mayor, I spend very little time on policing issues.

David Martin: I bet you just call it the police chief. You know what to do. Just don’t do stupid stuff. Is your police chief some of you you served with?

Jerry Dyer: Yeah. You know, I have a female police chief. I appointed her first female police chief in the history of our city.

David Martin: Did you work with her on the department?

Jerry Dyer: I did, I, elevated her several times. Promoted her? Okay. She got interested in law enforcement. When she was 16. She wrote along with my sister, who is a a police officer in Fresno. Was the first motorcycle officer, female motorcycle officer in Fresno. And, this chief Castro, Mindy Castro, rode with my sister, got interested and became a cop.

And now and now she’s a police chief.

David Martin: All right. I have never been to Fresno, California. If I’m coming, you’re going to take me out. Where are we going? What’s the dish of Fresno? What’s the one? Cuisine we must try, man.

Jerry Dyer: We’re probably going to go over to Pismo and have some seafood. Or you are landlocked.

David Martin: You know.

Jerry Dyer: We know we’re we’re we have a Pismo restaurant. Okay. In Fresno. All right. Incredible. Seafood. And then, we have we have a lot of steakhouses. And if you like Mexican food, no one has more or better Mexican food than Fresno.

David Martin: What’s the best local dish?

Jerry Dyer: Cal, we have so many. We have, Los amigos, as is incredible for their Mexican dishes. Yeah, we have we have too many to choose from, quite frankly. All right.

David Martin: I thought you going to say raisins? No, no.

Jerry Dyer: No raisins.

David Martin: No raisins. Where do you get your news from? Do you read about yourself?

Jerry Dyer: I, I do, but not as much as I used to. I look at social media, I don’t do social media. I just look at it. Okay? But I look at, some of the social media that you share behind you here.

David Martin: Hopefully they’ll they’ll talk about us.

Jerry Dyer: And I never look at the court or trying to never look at the comments on social media.

David Martin: Probably a good idea. This is the good government. Shall we always bring it back to good government? Tell me about a good government project that you started as mayor you’re really proud of.

Jerry Dyer: One of those is, there’s several but one of them is we have what’s called a pay more now, pay later program. We have some really dilapidated streets in our city. And the longer you wait to repay those streets, the more it costs in terms of inflation, road degradation. What it cost to repair street today could triple in two years.

And so the more you can pave today and work on streets, the less it’s going to cost you. So we bonded $100 million to do a pay more now, pay later program. And we’re having remarkable results throughout Fresno. I’d also say measure P, which is a sales tax in Fresno, for parks. And so now we’re able to build more parks, more community centers than we ever have before.

We have a, $43 million, senior center that we’re in the process of developing right now. And we’ve been able to cobble funds from measure P and a number of other things. But I would say being able to put together governmental programs based on future funding that we’re we’re bonding against and we’re able to do it a lot cheaper today than we did within five years.

David Martin: Is that good money? Is that government money well spent?

Jerry Dyer: It is. It’s it good government funding well spent. From a housing perspective, I’ll tell you, when I first became the mayor, the year before, we had only been involved in 88 affordable housing units in our city. In 2025, we were involved in 800. This year, we’re on target to do 1600. So those affordable housing projects are something I’m very proud of and project off ramp.

We had folks that were living on our freeway embankments, homeless people, over 600 of them. We purchased, shelters, purchased motels, converted those to emergency shelters. We contract with, nonprofit organizations. They provide the counseling, job training, and we’re getting those folks into permanent housing. So, a lot of good government work happening in Fresno and a lot of good community work happening in Fresno.

David Martin: So it sounds like the travel the world is going to be put off for a few more years.

Jerry Dyer: Yeah, three more years at least. And then we’ll see what happens after that.

David Martin: Jerry Dyer, the Metro, Fresno, California, the former police chief of Fresno, California, 18 years, a police chief, 40 years in the police department and now five years as mayor. That’s quite a career in public service.

Jerry Dyer: Thank you. I’ve enjoyed every well, not every bit of it, but most of most of it.

David Martin: Most of the thanks for coming on.

Jerry Dyer: Thank you Dave. Appreciate you.

David Martin: Want to hear more about good government? Check out another show I host leading Iowa good Government in Iowa cities. I host the show with Brad Cavanaugh, mayor of Dubuque, Iowa, and the immediate past president of the Iowa League of Cities. Together, we talk to leaders in Iowa cities. We talk about what works and what good government looks like in Iowa.

Join us right here. We listening now that’s leading Iowa. Good government in Iowa. Cities.

We need to take a breath, says Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer. Good advice for the federal government and for local leaders. And if you want, extend that to everyone out there trying to stop what ICE is doing, not because they shouldn’t be out there protesting. They should. But maybe if we all take a breath, we can figure out a way to make sure no one else is killed on America’s streets.

That’s good advice from here. Jerry Dyer of Fresno, California, and again on this episode of The Good Government Show, you heard from someone who said they had a calling to public service, 40 years in public service. That’s quite a calling and quite a great record of service. Now, after all that time to try some of that local Mexican food.

Well, that’s our show. Thanks for listening. Please like us and share this with your friends or new viewers right here. We’re listening and check out our website. Good Government show.com for extras. Help us keep telling stories of good government and action everywhere. Join us again for another episode right here. I’m Dave Martin and this is the Good Government show.

The Good Government show is a Valley Park production. Jim Ludlow, Dave Martin, that’s me and David Snyder are the executive producers. Our show is edited and produced by Jason Stershic. Please subscribe, then share and like us and review us. That’s the best way to make sure we’re able to keep telling these stories of our government working for all of us.

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Narrator: This podcast is part of the democracy Group.

**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.