Three Candidates Vie for Northwest Clovis Seat as District Elections Reshape City Council

Three candidates are competing for the Clovis City Council District 5 seat representing northwest Clovis in the Nov. 3 general election — the first under the city’s new district system.

Incumbent Drew Bessinger, a retired Clovis police captain first elected citywide in 2017, faces challenges from Almond, a Clovis Unified instructional aide working toward Braille transcription certification, and Haus, a businesswoman who works on infrastructure projects and co-chairs the city’s Measure Y oversight committee.

District 5 covers northwest Clovis from roughly Willow Avenue east to Sunnyside Avenue, and from Highway 168 and Sierra Avenue north to Behymer Avenue, including the Buchanan High School area.

The race centers on housing affordability, how fast Clovis should grow north, whether the city needs a homeless shelter, and what the district system itself means for representation.

The Breakdown

• The candidates: Almond, who describes her campaign as grassroots with individual donations, ran after conversations about Republicans running unopposed and now openly identifies as a Democrat in the nonpartisan race. Bessinger won his 2017 seat with 68% of the vote and served two years as mayor starting in 2019, including the first pandemic year. Haus ran in 2022 and lost, calling it a learning experience, and this time has the Clovis police union endorsement.
• Affordable housing divide: Almond calls it her first priority and faults the city for “using taxpayer money to fight a lawsuit about that, not meeting our affordable housing mandates.” She says the city is “scrambling to find places to put high density in” but must consider existing residents. Bessinger and Haus both say infrastructure must come first before building, with Bessinger noting the general plan being updated now “will affect people 25 years from now.”
• Growth north: All three agree Clovis can’t rush growth in the Vista Ranch area without roads, sewer, and water infrastructure. Bessinger says “the sewer capacity on the north end will max out” without a new treatment plant. Almond notes homes there are on wells and Fowler Avenue “is not sufficient to handle the traffic” with no shoulder. Bessinger also pointed to fatalities “north of Shepherd that people are rightfully or wrongfully blaming on the growth from the city.”
• Homeless shelter: Bessinger said flatly, “Do I think we should have a homeless shelter in Clovis? No, I don’t,” calling homelessness a mental health and substance abuse issue caused by state law changes. Haus said “not now,” arguing “you can’t just give them a bed and expect something to change” without adequate resources. Almond didn’t commit either way but said “I don’t think the solution is just shooing them over into Fresno,” framing it as a moral question about helping neighbors.
• Transit: Almond was the only candidate to discuss improving Clovis’ public transit, calling it “not user-friendly at all” and noting a trip from her house near Clovis and Alluvial to Clovis Community College takes “an hour and a half and three buses.”
• District system tensions: Bessinger, elected citywide, worries districts could lead to council members saying “don’t stick your nose in my district” and becoming “issue-centric on your district at the cost of another.” He noted the whole council used to focus on Southwest Clovis, the city’s older, struggling area, and “now there will be one” set of eyes on it. Haus prefers at-large elections, warning districts “can silo communities,” but credited them with drawing more candidates.

What This Means for You

This is the first Clovis City Council race under the new district system, and your vote on Nov. 3 will decide not just who represents northwest Clovis, but what kind of representation that means. The candidates split on whether districts help or hurt citywide accountability — whether one council member per area means better attention to neighborhood concerns, or whether it means the rest of the city’s problems aren’t your representative’s job anymore.

The specific stakes for District 5 voters: Bessinger says the area’s challenge is county roads the city doesn’t control being strained by Clovis’ growth, pushing traffic onto “roads built as rural roads, not as arterials.” Almond says her own council member lives two streets away and she didn’t know it until running — a representation gap she wants to close. And all three agree infrastructure must come before more housing, but disagree on what that means for how fast development should move and whether affordable housing has been a priority or an afterthought.

What You Can Do

The general election is Nov. 3. District 5 covers northwest Clovis from roughly Willow Avenue east to Sunnyside Avenue, and from Highway 168 and Sierra Avenue north to Behymer Avenue.

What to Watch

The shift to district elections is itself an experiment in how Clovis governs. Bessinger’s concern — that district representatives might tell colleagues to stay out of “their” area — reflects his experience elected citywide. The question is whether focused representation means better attention to a neighborhood’s specific needs, or whether it means the citywide view gets lost when each council member only has to answer to one slice of voters.

On homelessness specifically, two of the three candidates said flatly that Clovis shouldn’t have a shelter, with Bessinger calling it a problem to push back on Fresno and Haus saying the city doesn’t have the resources to do it right. Almond’s framing — that “shooing them over into Fresno” isn’t a real solution either — raises the question no one fully answered: if not Clovis and not Fresno, then where, and paid for how?

And on affordable housing, Almond’s point about the lawsuit is worth following up on: if it took legal pressure for the city to focus on meeting its housing mandates, what does that say about whether affordability would be a priority without it? That’s the kind of accountability question a council member either pushes or lets slide — watch who asks it after Nov. 3.