Fresno EOC’s New Leader Wants to Eliminate Board Positions

Only months after financial turmoil that nearly ruined the nonprofit, the Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission is considering reducing the number of its board members.

At the Monday, April 27 meeting, board members could be presented with the choice to reduce representation, a move some board members say not only cuts oversight, but puts more control in the hands of executive leadership.

Board Commissioner Matt Rogers said that newly appointed CEO Steven Lewis Lewis also wants to eliminate the public comment portion of meetings.

Minutes from the March 23 meeting show Lewis hiring attorneys to review the bylaws from when the organization began in 1965.

Lewis did not respond to an email and an EOC representative declined to comment, but minutes say Lewis feels the board is too large and he proposes reducing the board from 24 members to 15.

Rogers said the effect will be less oversight and representation.

“I believe quite frankly it is a desire by leadership to have fewer people at the table so there is less oversight and less accountability for the jobs they are doing,” Rogers said.

Fresno EOC’s ‘Complete Financial Malpractice’: Rogers

Lewis says the 24-member count “has no scientific or strategic basis,” according to meeting minutes.

“Rather, it was an arbitrary number that has simply been carried forward over time without a clear rationale,” the minutes state.

Community Action Agencies in Boston and Chicago both have smaller boards than Fresno, the minutes state.

The decision to reduce, however, comes after years of overspending by the nonprofit.

In 2024, after the anti-poverty agency burned through a $15 million reserve fund, board members did not renew its contract with its CEO, eventually hiring Lewis as permanent CEO.

Rogers, who was elected in 2025, said the organization should be increasing oversight.

“How does it make sense to reduce the amount of oversight and accountability on behalf of the board of commissioners when you’re coming out of a situation of complete financial malpractice?” Rogers said.

Minutes show Lewis also wants to change the name of board members from “commissioners” to “directors,” something Rogers says voters did not choose.

Rural Fresno County Needs Representation: Leon

The EOC’s board structure has three different bodies — elected members, business and community sector representatives, and representatives from elected officials.

Proposed cuts would reduce three from each body, Rogers said.

Huron Mayor and EOC board commissioner Rey Leon said cuts would impact rural Fresno County.

He told GV Wire that as commissioners, they work directly with the community to ensure that the EOC’s programs, including Head Start, Workforce Connection, WIC, and more than a dozen others, help the people in those areas.

“The squeaky wheel gets the oil, right? And so we need to make sure that we have the people from those areas that could speak to the challenges,” Leon said.

Rogers said he is inviting people from his area, including Reedley, Fowler, Selma, and Orange Cove, to come to Monday’s meeting to speak against the decision.

That could also soon be affected if a plan to eliminate public comment goes forward, Rogers said.

“It goes against the very fabric and bedrock of what this organization was founded upon, what is eradicating poverty,” Rogers said.

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