A new challenger for the Supervisor District 2 seat has stepped into the race.

Current school teacher, and former Merced City Council Member Josh Pedrozo, has put his bid in the challenge current District 2 member Lee Lor.

The 35-year-old Josh Pedrozo is a Merced native who grew up on a farm in the outskirts of Merced. “Being raised on the farm really helped shape a lot of my personality,” Josh tells Merced Daily.

When asked what inspired him to be involved with politics, Josh tells Merced Daily, “Gary Condit.” The former congressman visited my fifth grade class and talked about how he helped people everyday, and helped people in the future by setting policies – that’s something that I wanted to do. Since then I always knew I wanted a career where I can help people.”

When Josh was in High school he landed his first job at McDonalds and worked on weekends. He graduated from Golden Valley in 2001 and continued his education at Cal Poly university where he graduated in 2005.

Josh would move back to Merced in 2007 and in 2009 he was elected to be a part of the Merced City Council. In 2013, Josh was elected as mayor pro temp.

When asked what Josh Pedrozo’s campaign is based on, he tells Merced Daily,”I believe I always had the ability to collaborate with other people and I think thats really important. When we look at a lot of the problems Merced County faces, a lot of it centers around homelessness. I don’t believe we can find a solution for homelessness, but I believe we can alleviate a lot of the problems.

Pedrozo says, “Public safety is another issue I believe we have. I believe people need to feel safe. We need to recruit and retain more sheriff deputies and firefighters. I’m also really big on economic development and transportation as well. I believe if you want to bring in good businesses, you need a good infrastructure. I really worked hard on transportation when I was on the Merced City Council, because it’s something that is important to me. I was really big on Yosemite Parkway.”

He further notes, “When I was on the Merced City Council I noticed we tried to always do the same thing – to address the problems that we face and you just can’t do that. You have to be more creative and be more open minded.”

*Please note: Merced Daily does NOT endorse any candidates. We welcome all candidates to be interviewed.