The Fresno City Council moved on Monday to end — on paper, at least — the public feud between City Attorney Andrew Janz and Councilmember Miguel Arias over the arrest of city council candidate Naindeep Singh, declaring in a brief unsigned statement that Janz followed city policies and that both investigations the two men had threatened against each other are now closed.

Source: Fresnoland, Nov. 9, 2026

"…the Fresno City Council has reviewed the matter and has concluded that policies were followed by the City Attorney and the matter is closed," the statement reads. "The City Attorney has withdrawn his letter seeking an investigation of Councilmember Arias, and that matter is closed as well." The council had taken the dispute up behind closed doors at its Thursday session at City Hall before issuing Monday's statement.

What the statement did not do is explain itself. It did not say how the council reached its conclusion, why Janz withdrew his request to investigate Arias, or whether Janz still stands by his earlier suggestion that the councilmember may have interfered with the city attorney's role. A spokesperson for Janz said the office had no further comment, and Arias did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

How a traffic stop became a City Hall feud

The dispute reaches back to the night of October 24, when Fresno police arrested Singh — a Punjabi candidate for the council's District 1 seat — on suspicion of driving under the influence after a stop for expired tags, just 10 days before the election. Janz, whose office does not prosecute DUI cases but does hold oversight roles in local elections, was the city official who first confirmed the arrest, within hours, to a local independent writer — a confirmation Arias later argued was far outside the city attorney's usual lane.

The arrest itself collapsed within days. Singh's toxicology results came back negative, the police case was closed, and Police Chief Mindy Casto publicly apologised to the candidate — a sequence Awaaz Punjab has reported step by step since October. By then, however, the arrest had already been turned into campaign ammunition: an anti-Singh political action committee sent mailers touting the arrest, and Arias publicly questioned Janz's legal-services contract with political operative Alex Tavlian, who was behind the PAC. The PAC later retracted the claims in its mailer.

On October 29 the feud went fully public, with Arias demanding an independent investigation into the arrest and its leak, and Janz vowing within the hour to open a counter-investigation into Arias. That earlier confrontation is reported in full here: Fresno City Hall leaders threaten to investigate each other over Naindeep Singh arrest

Monday's statement is the council's answer to that standoff: no investigation of Janz by the city, no investigation of Arias at the city attorney's request, and no public reasoning attached to either decision. The pro-Singh Bains Law Offices had also written to the council urging it to use its oversight authority to inquire into Janz's involvement; the statement does not address that request either.

Singh's camp: "interested in facts, not bare conclusions"

Singh's side made clear on Monday that, for them, nothing is closed. "On behalf of Naindeep Singh, today's developments do not change our position that a full and unbiased investigation should be conducted," his attorney, Kevin Little, told Fresnoland in a statement. "We are interested in facts, not bare conclusions. We have submitted exhaustive requests for public records and hope that those requests result in the disclosure of the requested information, since apparently now the matter is closed from the City's perspective."

Little and Singh have asked California Attorney General Rob Bonta to investigate Janz and his department, including the allegation that the city attorney may have played an inappropriate role in news of the arrest becoming public in the first place. A spokesperson for the attorney general told Fresnoland on Friday that the office could not discuss whether such an investigation is in the works. Janz fundraised for Bonta in 2022; Bonta's office has, in past cases, threatened to sue the City of Fresno, a record Singh's camp points to in arguing that the connection would not shield the city attorney.

The bodycam video is still to come

One piece of evidence may arrive within days regardless of the council's closure. Marcelino Valdez, a spokesman for the city attorney's department, told Fresnoland on Monday that body-camera footage of Singh's arrest would be released soon, once the city completes "legally mandated redactions to ensure all statutory privacy protections are met." "Our office needs a few additional days to finalize the process, and we expect to make the video available to the media later this week," Valdez said.

The footage has been a running sore point. Media outlets, and Singh and his attorney, have filed public-records requests for the police report and bodycam video since last month and have been blocked, even though Chief Casto told the media last month that the footage would be made available upon request — a contradiction the city attorney's office had not addressed before Monday's promise of a release this week.

What happens next

Three tracks remain open even after Monday's statement. The bodycam release, expected later this week, will be the first time the public can judge the October 24 stop for itself. The attorney general's office has neither confirmed nor ruled out the investigation Singh has requested. And Singh's records requests — for the police report, the footage and related communications — are still working through a process his lawyer has already called exhaustive, with litigation an option his camp has not taken off the table.

The political backdrop has not gone away either: Singh's District 1 race was among the closest in Fresno this cycle, decided by a narrow margin in the count after election day. For Fresno's large Punjabi community in the Central Valley — one of the biggest Punjabi populations in the United States — the case has become a test of whether a candidate from the community can get the same process as anyone else when an arrest lands ten days before an election and then falls apart. Monday's two-sentence closure, issued without reasons, is unlikely to be the last word.