Councilmember Drew Bessinger

“Clovis is a special place to live and raise a family, and this does not occur by accident.  It takes long-range vision and planning and a commitment to the citizens and our future.  Decisions that your council makes today may make immediate changes, but often will only be seen in the years to come or even decades down the road.  We need to ensure that all of our citizens, those in our older established neighborhoods and those in our newest ones, have access to the same levels of services and safety.  As your mayor during the first year of the pandemic, I am proud of the role I played working to protect our most vulnerable citizens, partnering with our large and small businesses to keep them open and viable, and protecting the personal freedoms of all of our citizens.  We quickly reopened our Council meetings because we believed that our citizens had the absolute right to have their voices heard face-to-face and not virtually.  As a 41 year Clovis resident, US Army veteran and a 50 year servant of our citizens,  I plan to continue to make decisions that are consistent with keeping Clovis ‘Clovis’ for our future generations to enjoy.”

Biographical Data

• First elected to office: March 2017 (Mayor 2019-2021), Re-elected 2022
• Term: through November 2026
• US Army veteran – Military Police Corps 1975-79
• Former Airport Chief of Police at the Fresno-Yosemite International Airport
• Retired Police Captain from the Clovis Police Department
• Former Interim Police Chief for the cities of Kingsburg, Parlier, Fowler, and Atwater
• Former Clovis Personnel Commissioner
• BA Degree in Public Administration from Fresno State
• Married to Yvonne Avila-Bessinger since 2000
  2 adult sons, Derek and Christopher, and three grandchildren Blake, Harper, and Hendrik-Drew

Councilmember Bessinger may be contacted via email or by phone at the number below.