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The 2022 Clovis City Council race has a crowded field of candidates heading into the Nov. 8 election with nine candidates who are a mix of new and familiar faces and one incumbent seeking re-election.

The Clovis Roundup reached out to candidates for interviews and those that replied will be featured in upcoming articles. First to be featured is Matt Basgall.

Matt Basgall has been a resident of Clovis for 30 years and has had a career with the Clovis Police Department for approximately 29 of those years. During that time he took on positions such as canine handler, detective, and then Chief of Police for six years. Basgall credited his motivation to be more involved with the community and giving a focus to public safety as his catalyst for running for City Council.

“I’m a huge proponent and supporter of the police department. I know that the police department had its struggle with being able to get staffing and they are the same struggles I faced for all the years that I was involved and we’re constantly looking for creative ways to solve problems,” Basgall said.

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School safety and a focus on bringing more businesses into Clovis, specifically the Sierra Vista Mall, which according to Basgall is “typically empty”, are issues Basgall said are his focus.

“I know there’s a new owner of it, but the Sierra Vista Mall had such a great opportunity. But yet the middle of it is still so empty, how do we fix that? We’ve built up from the corners, we’ve got the movie theater and those are all good but everything in between there is a ghost town and we got to figure that out,” Basgall said.

Basgall said he is an advocate for “responsible growth” in Clovis because, however the city is developed in the future, will be how

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Diane Pearce, who moved to Clovis over three years ago, has been a small business production owner in Clovis for the last 20 years. After graduating from UC Davis, Pearce worked for former Congressman Radanovich. After that, she was a substitute teacher in Clovis Unified.

Pearce ran for election last cycle and didn’t anticipate returning, but she could not pass up this opportunity.

“Last round was just kind of a unique opportunity with some of the things that I had seen and so I went ahead and ran last cycle but I didn’t really know that I was going to be running again so soon. But when this opportunity presented itself, I had a number of people who reached out to me and my husband and I had already been considering it and so I decided to go ahead and take the plunge again,” Pearce said.

Heading into this election, Pearce said she has the “momentum” from her previous attempt and this time she’s picking up where she left off, as opposed to just starting over.

For Pearce, the catalyst for her decision to run for City Council stemmed from her family’s opportunity to move to Clovis paired with a goal of representing self employed citizens of Clovis by running.

“I recognized that the Clovis City Council didn’t have anyone who was self employed and diversity of experience is important to a governing body,” Pearce said.

The issues of keeping Clovis safe, supporting local business, maintaining local control and protecting Clovis schools are what Peace feels are key issues this election because “anybody seeking to represent this community had better not only just be aware of it, but committed to maintaining those things,” Pearce said.

“I think the most important responsibility of any government agency is public safety, to make sure that their citizens are safe in their businesses, their neighborhoods, and that their kids can walk to school safely and play in their parks,” Pearce said.

Pearce said the people’s ability to buy into the Clovis way of life and make Clovis their home, like Pearce’s family has, is something she wants for others. Pearce said to do it starts with a focus on “safety and excellent schools,”.

Pearce said in a big field of candidates she feels that her background as a business owner will provide a voice for the business

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sector and her experience of being self employed and her connection to community leaders and other local officials helps qualify her for a position such as this.

“Being able to reach out and partner with [other local elected officials] to kind of amplify the needs of Clovis…but also to make sure that when we have issues coming down the lane, whether that is from Sacramento or with the County, having those relationships and being able to reach out and really make sure that Clovis’ needs are heard throughout the process is something that I would bring to the table,” Pearce said.

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relaxed at the helm of the “Finish Here” booth, talked about how the church likes to host different events throughout the year in order to have a good time and get to know one another.

“We like to have fun events where people can come and just enjoy and have fun, get food, hang out, get to know one another.”

He did then mention that it is also a “bridge event” for New Covenant Community Church as a whole in order to reach out to possible future patrons for their church “to have people come see [them] and have fun.”

Ultimately though, Pastor Chip acknowledged that the event held Saturday was to connect the community with those daily workers who keep their communities running day in and day out. “What’s really cool is you get to walk around and like talk to some of the people that run the fire trucks and the police and just like it’s cool to be able to personally thank them and say like, ‘Dude, you know I don’t know if you hear it often enough,’ [just to be able] to say ‘Thank you for all that you do’”.

Pastor Chip culminated the experience by saying, “We want to connect the community with you know the people who are around here serving our community, we want to get them connected.”

New Covenant Church was also passing out flyers for their upcoming events which include the “Trunk r Treat” event on October 30th and their Christmas Boutique that will take place on October 29th. Clovis is left for future generations.

“It needs to be organized and thought out and we need to do it in a systematic way that is best for our community,” Basgall said.

Set against a backdrop of a crowded field of candidates, Basgall said his perspective of living through similar issues facing many voters in Clovis paired with his experience as a member of the police department provides him with a unique perspective that he feels voters may appreciate.

“We may have to reevaluate how we do things and maybe we have to make some tough choices along the way. Currently I know everybody hates taxes, and right now we’re working on a hotel or transportation tax that will only apply to people who stay in hotel rooms…while this could generate up to $500,000…I think we could’ve done more with this particular initiative…”Basgall said.

Basgall said, in Clovis “we respond to everything, we take care of the little things before they become big things,” and Basgall added that as Clovis continues to grow it’ll become more difficult to maintain that standard if the right resources and support don’t make it to where they are needed in order to get Clovis back to a point where Clovis can “respond to everything,”.