Fresno City Council kills resolution to officially oppose effort to declare California a Sanctuary State

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- City leaders have drawn protests for refusing to declare Fresno a sanctuary city. City Council Member Steve Brandau wanted the council to go further and officially oppose senate bill 54, an effort to declare California a sanctuary state.

"If there becomes a struggle or a war between Sacramento and Washington DC, you know a place like Fresno can get caught in the cross-hairs and I wanted to avoid that and I wanted my resolution to say we need this federal funding let's not start a war."

But Council Member Luis Chavez said it wasn't worth debating and a majority of the council voted to remove the item from the agenda without considering it.

"The same argument that my colleague used, there's a flip side to that, and so my concern is we would sour those relationships in either of those two places-- and for me, it was we are either going to shoot ourselves in the left foot or the right foot, so my decision was to pull the item and not get in the middle of that fight."

Brandau was not happy with the decision.

"No matter what the issue is when you have something you want heard and your colleagues don't want to hear it, it's a little disappointing, I would say I'm disappointed."

Leticia Valencia, of the group Faith in Fresno, planned to speak out against Brandaus's measure, and was pleased the council killed it because she felt was an attempt to bash immigrants.

"Council Member Brandau said this was all about the money, when in reality, putting forth a resolution opposing SB 54 is really only an anti-immigrant resolution."

Brandau, denied any motive other than protecting federal funding to city programs.