Fresno County's Measures A and B on next week's ballot

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- California's Primary election is next Tuesday.

Two measures on Fresno County ballots are 'A' and 'B' - which boil down to state versus local control.

Measure A is an amendment to the county's charter. It states elections for the District Attorney and Sheriff will take place during the gubernatorial election cycle instead of moving them to the presidential election cycle. California's law requires counties and charter counties that did not specify when said elections would be held prior to January 2021 to move them to the presidential cycle.

"The legislature has been looking at voting patterns and has tried to encourage voting by as many people as possible. What we found is during the presidential election, there is a high voter turnout, in the non-presidential election the turnout is about half," said State Senator Anna Caballero.

But Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig believes it should not be about voter turnout.

"It's important for us to keep the gubernatorial ballot balanced as well as the presidential, so we wanted to keep those on the gubernatorial ballot," said Magsig.

Measure B would give the Fresno County Board of Supervisors jurisdiction over naming or changing the name of places in the county.

It comes after the state's board of geographic names renamed 'Squaw Valley' to 'Yokuts Valley' following the California State legislature voting unanimously to remove the name "Squaw" from all geographic features or places in the state.

Assembly Bill 2022 deemed the word racist and a derogatory term.

"Measure B quite simply says when it comes to naming places under the jurisdiction of the county, that will remain with the board of supervisors only. That measure is about local control," said Magsig.

State Senator Anna Caballero says it is not about local control, and the issue has already been addressed.

"The county board of supervisors sued the state to stop this law from impacting them and they lost the lawsuit, again they're spending money that could go to roads and public safety and mental health services on suing the state. It doesn't make any sense," said Caballero.

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