Wesley Chesbro
Chesbro is a member of the California State Assembly from the 1st district. The district's range includes 6 counties (Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino, Sonoma, Trinity). Notable cities inside the district include Cloverdale, Ukiah, Eureka, Arcata, Crescent City, Fort Bragg, and Clearlake.
In his long career in public service, Wesley Chesbro has served on the Arcata City Council, Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, and the California Integrated Waste Management Board. In 1998 Mr. Chesbro was elected to the State Senate, where he served eight years representing the North Coast of California in District Two. He is now serving his first term in the State Assembly.
Throughout his career as a public servant, Mr. Chesbro has been a passionate supporter of the environment, preserving access to education and healthcare in rural communities, labor, rural local governments and those with disabilities accessing the care they need.
Mr. Chesbro moved to the North Coast to attend Humboldt State College in 1969. He founded the area’s first recycling center in 1971. He founded and directed the Northcoast Environmental Center, helped defeat the peripheral canal, preserving water resources, fought to save local open space and championed coastal protection laws, including the fight against off-shore oil drilling.
Mr. Chesbro was appointed to be a founding member of the California Integrated Waste Management Board in 1990, where he served until 1998. The Waste Management Board is responsible for implementing the California comprehensive recycling law (AB 939) and ensuring that at least 50 percent of California's solid waste is recycled.
Mr. Chesbro served on the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors from 1980 to 1990. Prior to this, he served six years as a member of the Arcata City Council, from 1974 to 1980. He was elected to the Arcata City Council at the age of 22.
In 1998, Mr. Chesbro was elected to the State Senate, District Two. During his tenure in the Senate, he chaired the Senate’s Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, Health and Human Services Committee, Standing Committee on Revenue and Taxation, and the Select Committees on California’s Wine Industry. He also served as a member of the following committees: Education, Environmental Quality, Governmental Organization, Health, Human Services, and Veterans Affairs. He authored legislation to maintain funding for rural community clinics and other rural access to health care, protection of natural resources, housing for individuals with special needs, recycling incentives, and minimum funding for law enforcement departments in rural areas.
After finishing two terms in the Senate in 2006, Mr. Chesbro was once again appointed to the California Integrated Waste Management Board. He also served on the California Mental Health Oversight and Accountability Commission and as a board member for Open Door Community Health Centers and the Humboldt Bay Housing and Development Corporation.
In November 2008, voters on the North Coast returned Mr. Chesbro to once again serve as their representative in the state Legislature, when they elected him to the State Assembly, District One. The First Assembly District stretches from just north of Santa Rosa to the Oregon border. The district includes all of Del Norte, Humboldt, Trinity, Lake and Mendocino counties, and Northern and Western Sonoma County.
Mr. Chesbro has been married to his wife, Cindy, for 26 years. They have two sons, Collin and Alan.