Fresno COG Board Approves $1.3M Lease Despite Staff Reports of Rat Infestation

The Fresno Council of Governments board signed a new five-year lease in May worth roughly $1.3 million total, committing the regional transportation planning agency to remain in its downtown office above a shuttered casino through 2031 — despite staff reports of an ongoing rat infestation severe enough that employees find live, dying rodents in glue traps inside their desk drawers.

The lease, approved by a board led by Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer, contains no requirement that the landlord — developer Tom Richards’ Penstar Group — fix the rodent problem. Richards has contributed over $10,000 to Dyer’s mayoral campaigns, including the maximum amount to both his 2020 and 2024 races, according to city records.

Four COG staffers, granted anonymity to protect against retaliation, described to Fresnoland an office under siege: rats running through ceilings, droppings on work desks, one rodent chewing through tampons in a woman’s drawer, another gnawing a stress ball that later exploded in a coworker’s face. One staffer counted four rats in 10 days this June. The week the board approved the lease, a rat was seen leaving Executive Director Robert Phipps’ own office.

“It is essentially a rat hole,” one staffer said. “Anything would be better than a rat-infested building.”

Eddy Valencia, a technician with commercial-property experience at Dustin Pest Control, said the infestation is exceptional even for downtown Fresno — a spillover from the abandoned Club One casino below COG’s 13,000-square-foot office and the empty buildings surrounding it. The rats’ brazenness — raiding desk drawers in daylight instead of sticking to dark corners — points to a much larger underlying population, Valencia said.

“If it’s not on the severe level, then it’s getting there,” Valencia said.

Staff also described flying cockroaches, unhoused people found sleeping in the building (one in the board room, another who lived unnoticed in a backroom), mounds of human feces in elevators, and a fire evacuation after a homeless person’s crack pipe set a mattress ablaze outside the office. One staffer said they were afraid to walk to the restroom alone.

When the lease came up for approval in May, Phipps told the board a survey showed 75% of employees wanted to stay. But interviews show the “survey” was Phipps stopping by staffers’ desks unannounced and asking them directly — with at least two describing the interaction as awkward and intimidating, given that their direct superior was asking.

“It was being asked like — making you agree with him,” one staffer said. “I didn’t want to go against what he says. I felt caught off guard and a little intimidated.”

At the board’s May meeting, only Parlier Mayor Alma Beltran pushed back. “I still continuously hear complaints about this building — the rodents, the homeless,” Beltran said. “People who work here every day deal with these conditions.”

Dyer, who advocated for signing the lease, dismissed Beltran’s concerns. “I’ve heard the rumors or urban legends about people not being happy with the building,” Dyer said. “Who are those people? Because I think there was a polling of employees.”

That response effectively ended the discussion. The board approved the lease through May 2031. Beltran cast the sole “no” vote. Dyer did not respond to Fresnoland’s request for comment about staff conditions.

Phipps defended the decision, saying the agency has escalated its pest-control contract to three visits per month and is working with Richards’ company to seal entry points. He said moving would have cost “up to a million in tenant improvements” and that the building’s pest-control contractor submitted an affidavit in March stating its traps hadn’t caught a single rat in eight months — a claim that conflicts with staff reports of four rats seen in 10 days this June.

Phipps acknowledged the new lease contains no guarantees. “There’s no language in it that provides any guarantee of any sort,” he said. “But our costs are fixed.”

Les Beshears, COG’s 70-something finance director who has allocated Fresno County transportation funds since Measure C first passed in 1986, is known around the office for taking cat naps under his desk at lunchtime. With food smells in the air at that hour, coworkers fear a hungry rat will bite him while he sleeps — a rat was seen walking out of his office space last month, two staffers said.

Beshears, who grew up picking cotton on a Texas farm, said he isn’t worried. “Rats are like a rattlesnake: If you let ’em be, they’ll leave you alone,” he said. He doesn’t believe the reports about a rat leaving his office in the first place. “They were just trying to bluff me,” he said.

Two staffers offered a theory about why COG’s arrangement holds: a notable part of the staff is on H-1B visas, employees with the most to lose and the least room to complain. Once those staffers get their green card, many quickly leave the agency for other jobs, one said.

“You’re from a culture that’s more obedient, and you have a lot more to lose,” one staffer said.

The Breakdown

• The Fresno Council of Governments board, led by Mayor Jerry Dyer, approved a five-year lease in May worth roughly $1.3 million total ($20,000 per month) to keep the agency’s downtown office in a building owned by developer Tom Richards’ Penstar Group.
• Four staffers describe an ongoing rat infestation severe enough that rodents are seen in daylight, raiding desk drawers and chewing through personal items. One pest-control technician called it exceptional even for downtown Fresno, pointing to a large underlying population.
• The lease contains no requirement that the landlord fix the rodent problem. Executive Director Robert Phipps says the agency has escalated pest control and is working with Richards’ company to seal entry points, but acknowledged “there’s no language in it that provides any guarantee of any sort.”
• When the lease came up for renewal, Phipps told the board 75% of employees wanted to stay based on a “survey” — but staffers say Phipps simply asked them at their desks unannounced, and at least two described feeling pressured to agree with their direct superior.
• Developer Tom Richards has contributed over $10,000 to Dyer’s mayoral campaigns, including the maximum amount to both his 2020 and 2024 races.
• Only Parlier Mayor Alma Beltran voted against the lease, citing staff complaints about rodents and homeless people in the building. Dyer dismissed her concerns as “rumors or urban legends” and cited the “polling” of employees.

What This Means for You

The people running the agency that plans Fresno County’s transportation future report to a board you elect. That board just committed $1.3 million of public money through 2031 to keep staff in conditions multiple employees describe as unsafe, with no contractual guarantee the landlord will fix the problem.

This is not a story about rats. It is a story about whose comfort a governing body prioritizes when it makes decisions — and whether the officials on that board (led by Mayor Dyer) treat accountability seriously when staff raise concerns, or whether those concerns get dismissed as “rumors or urban legends” when a campaign donor stands to benefit from the status quo.

The same officials who signed this lease are the ones deciding how Measure C transportation dollars get spent across Fresno County. If this is how they steward a workplace lease, what does that say about how they steward the rest?

What You Can Do

The Fresno Council of Governments board meets monthly. Public comment is available at each meeting. You can find the meeting schedule and contact information for board members — including Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer and Parlier Mayor Alma Beltran — on the COG website.

What to Watch

The article states COG has paid $3 million to $4 million in rent to Richards’ Penstar Group since moving into the building in 2010. That is not a small amount of public money for a workplace multiple employees describe as “a rat hole.”

Here is the real question this story surfaces: why would a board approve a five-year lease extension with no contractual fix for a problem staff have been raising since 2024, in a building owned by a developer who has contributed over $10,000 to the board chair’s campaigns? Phipps says moving would have cost “up to a million in tenant improvements” — but COG has already paid multiples of that to stay put, with no guarantee the conditions improve.

Stewardship is not only about keeping costs fixed. It is also about whether the people entrusted with public resources treat the people doing the work as worth protecting. A lease with no accountability clause is a choice — one that says the landlord’s flexibility matters more than the employees’ safety. That is worth remembering the next time this board asks the public to trust it with transportation dollars.

And there is a pattern worth naming plainly: concentrated power, limited oversight, and the people with the least room to complain (H-1B visa holders, according to two staffers) absorbing the cost of decisions made above them. That is not unique to this office or this board — it is a recognizable dynamic in any workplace where the people at the top do not personally live with the consequences of their votes. Whether that changes depends on whether voters demand it does.