Fresno, California: Nonprofit Says It Did Not Send the AI Attack Mailers Voters Blame on It

A Fresno nonprofit says it is being blamed for campaign mail it never sent, and it issued a public statement this week to separate itself from a political committee with an almost identical name.

Fresno Building Healthy Communities, known as Fresno BHC, said it did not create, pay for or distribute the political mailers recently sent to Fresno voters about City Council candidates, and that it has no connection with the mailers or with the committee that paid for them. The mailers say they were "paid for by Fresno Healthy Communities." Since they arrived, the nonprofit said, its office has received calls from residents and inquiries from media outlets who believed it sent them. It did not.

The committee behind the mailers

According to the committee's campaign finance filing for July 1 through October 17, 2026, its full name is "Fresno Healthy Communities sponsored by Central Valley Council," committee ID 1491525. The filing shows Central Valley Council, committee ID 1482358, as its only funder, contributing $128,000 this year. Fresno BHC said KVPR and Fresnoland have reported that Central Valley Council is a political action committee started and run by local political consultant Alex Tavlian.

KFSN reported on Friday that campaign spending records name Solomon Verduzco as the committee's controlling officeholder and Alena Pacheco, wife of Fresno County Supervisor Brian Pacheco, as its treasurer, and that Pacheco confirmed Tavlian founded the sponsoring group. Tavlian told KFSN "no comment" about the mailer. Neither of the two committees has a website.

A mailer that outlived the facts

The fight follows the case of Singh, the District 1 council candidate whom Fresno Police Chief Mindy Casto apologized to on Tuesday, October 27, after the police laboratory reported no drugs in his system following his arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence. A mailer about that arrest, paid for by Fresno Healthy Communities, still reached voters' mailboxes after his exoneration, and the committee later retracted it. On Friday, Singh showed KFSN two more mailers generated with artificial intelligence that were also paid for by the committee, one of which appeared to push a racial stereotype, and he criticized the techniques behind them.

"Our name means something in this community. Residents built it by showing up, organizing, and fighting for healthier neighborhoods," said Sandra Celedon, the president and chief executive of Fresno Building Healthy Communities. "So, when a political committee uses a name that sounds almost exactly like ours, and people start calling us upset about mailers we never sent, that's a problem. Voters deserve transparency. They deserve to know who is actually talking to them and who is paying for it. Tactics designed to confuse people about who's behind a message have no place in our democracy." Celedon told KFSN the mailers brought a flood of angry and disappointed messages from people who thought the nonprofit was behind them, and that the confusion hurt its reputation.

Fresno BHC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. By law it does not endorse or oppose candidates, takes no position in any candidate race on the November 3 ballot, and is speaking out only because its name is being confused with the committee's. The group pointed to a pattern in committees tied to Tavlian: the One Fresno Coalition, named close to Mayor Jerry Dyer's One Fresno Foundation, and the 2025 committee Fresno Future Forward, fined $1,000 by the Fresno City Attorney over disclosure forms in a District 5 special election. Residents with concerns about the mailers can file a complaint with the Fresno County District Attorney's Public Integrity Unit at 2100 Tulare Street in Fresno, the nonprofit said.