Brody Wayne Fernandez bows out, leaves message for city
In early November of 2017, Brody Wayne Fernandez officially announced his candidacy for Davis City Council. However, he recently announced that he will not be filing nomination papers with the city and will be resigning from the 2018 election.
“I want the citizens of Davis to know that I am unable to invest the time and resources I know they deserve in an election as important as this one,” Fernandez said in a written statement. “I’ve had the privilege to meet so many people in this great city, and I’m so grateful to call them my neighbors.”
While he may have been the youngest candidate at 28 years old, Fernandez wanted the city to know about his campaign regarding Davis’ current housing crisis. The vacancy rate has barely been above 0.2 percent, and he wanted to resolve the divisions between students and longtime residents.
“This is becoming a serious problem and may be the most prominent issue facing the city,” Fernandez said. “A single mom moving to Davis who works at the local hospital as a nurse is competing with mostly college students for a slim pick of available housing options. That’s not an appropriate living situation for either party involved.”
Mayor Pro Tempore Brett Lee is unsure if Fernandez’s leave will impact the race for Davis City Council.
“I’m not sure that it will affect it much, as the council race has nine other candidates for two seats,” Lee said. “I’m not sure that dropping out of the campaign will have that much of an impact. It’s hard to know what kind of campaign he would’ve run.”
However, Lee emphasized that gaining a new perspective from a former UC Davis student would have been a good addition to the race.
“It would be nice to have a UC Davis student in the race, but it’s hard with the practical matters,” Lee said. “Many candidates have already had kicked off their events such as at the Farmer’s Market, and I don’t believe Brody had done that. At this point, there has not been much difference, but having said that, he could’ve run a very robust campaign.”
Written by: Stella Tran — city@theaggie.org
