Jerry Dyer is Mayor of Fresno, elected outright in the March 2020 primary and sworn in as the city’s 26th mayor in January 2021; he won re-election in March 2024 with more than 81% of the vote and, under the city’s two-term limit, is serving what should be his final term through 2029. Fresno’s mayoral office is officially nonpartisan, though Dyer is registered as a Republican. A Fresno native and Fowler High School graduate, he holds a bachelor’s degree in criminology from Fresno State and a master’s in management from Cal Poly Pomona.
Before becoming mayor, Dyer spent his entire career at the Fresno Police Department, rising through the ranks to serve as Chief of Police from 2001 to 2019, the longest tenure of any chief in the department’s history. His time as chief included public protests calling for his resignation after officer-involved shootings, and attorneys challenging the department’s use-of-force practices argued that a significant share of officer-involved shootings over a five-year period amounted to unreasonable force amid a related federal civil rights lawsuit; Dyer has pointed to declines in crime and traffic fatalities during his tenure as chief.
As mayor, Dyer has prioritized the “One Fresno Housing Strategy,” homelessness initiatives including “Project Off-Ramp,” which relocated more than 650 people from freeway encampments, and a “Pave Now, Pay Later” road-repair bond program covering roughly $100 million in infrastructure spending, alongside downtown and Chinatown revitalization efforts. His relationship with the city council has often been contentious: several council members, including Miguel Arias, Nelson Esparza, and Luis Chavez, have criticized his budget proposals over insufficient infrastructure funding for south Fresno, at one point declaring a Dyer budget “dead on arrival.” In July 2026, the council unanimously tabled a charter amendment Dyer sought that would have allowed mayors a third consecutive term, with Council President Esparza declining to fast-track a special meeting and Councilmember Arias criticizing the effort to “change our constitution on three days’ notice”; the measure cannot reappear on the ballot before 2028.
