What's at stake:
At an at times heated city council meeting, city leaders approved everything from official support for a sales tax initiative and new Measure P grant guidelines to new entertainment zones and funding for housing units.
The Fresno City Council put their full support behind the Better Roads Safe Streets initiative, which seeks to use sales tax revenue to fund transportation needs and infrastructure.
The council unanimously approved a resolution to support the tax initiative.
“Almost two thirds of all of the money will be dedicated to fixing our local roads, and that includes our alleyways, our sidewalks, median islands, and a number of other things,” Mayor Jerry Dyer said at a Thursday news conference. “And again, it’s not just the city of Fresno measure, it is a Fresno County measure.”
Fresno will expect at least $75 million annually for transportation needs, Dyer said at the news conference. The funds are vital, because without it, city leaders said funds may have to be pulled from other city departments to handle everything from road repairs to sidewalk improvements.
Councilmember Miguel Arias said that could mean pulling money away from police, fire and parks. He, along with councilmembers Tyler Maxwell and Nick Richardson, spoke in favor of the tax initiative, too.
“We need a real solution and we need one now, which is what this measure proposes to do,” Maxwell said at the news conference. “Complete streets for all of our neighborhoods, no longer having to wait a generation or two to get your street paved, the potholes fixed, the sidewalks level, the trees trim, or new trees planted.”
Funding for the entire county’s transportation needs are on the line as Fresno County elections officials tally up and verify signatures gathered to place the Better Roads Safe Streets tax initiative on the ballot. If it gets on the ballot and is approved by voters, it would renew an already existing transportation sales tax, not add any new taxes on top of it.
“I’m very, very confident, based on information that we have received, that this measure will qualify for the November ballot,” Dyer said at the news conference. “It’s our attempt to go before the Board of Supervisors in late July or mid-August at the latest to get this put on the ballot.”
Fresno County Clerk/Registrar of Voters James Kus told Fresnoland he does not currently have an estimate for when exactly his office will complete verifying signatures for the tax initiative to end up on the ballot.
However, he did confirm that the goal is for his office to get it done before the Fresno County Board of Supervisors meeting on July 14.
“We are required to complete the signature review by August 18,” Kus told Fresnoland. “We hope to complete the review in time for the Board of Supervisors meeting on July 14. As the June Primary Election winds down, we will adjust resources to facilitate that intent.”
Artists voice frustration at city council again
The Thursday council meeting’s consent agenda had more than 32 items on it. All items on the consent agenda are typically approved with a single council vote without public discussion.
All the items passed unanimously except two, because Councilmember Richardson recorded no votes for them.
One was a proposal for adopting Measure P grant guidelines and subcommittees. Several artists and community members came to the city council meeting to voice opposition to the current version of the grant guidelines.
They specifically took issue with increasing the maximum grant threshold from $150,000 to $350,000.
Community members and artists who sharply criticized the change explained that it would make the bigger local organizations entitled to a bigger share of the annual arts funding, leaving less money to go around to the dozens of smaller organizations and artists seeking funding.
“When a few organizations get more, everyone else gets less,” said Alicia Rodriguez, co-founder of Labyrinth Art Collective. “Measure P belongs to Fresno’s cultural ecosystem, not just its largest institutions. Public dollars should create opportunity, not concentrate power.”
Rodriguez said the city’s PRAC Commission recommended a $150,000 grant threshold, and increasing that isn’t equitable for Fresno.
“You guys have been sued up the ass for Brown Act violations, for racial discrimination — and we see how you regarded folks in the community earlier,” Rodriguez said. “Come on, get it together, y’all. This is disgusting, and the people are getting tired.”
Another member of the public said increasing the Measure P grants threshold would only make it harder for artists to live in Fresno and make the region’s brain drain problem even worse.
“The same way that the public notices when you have closed-door budget subcommittee meetings, it is noticed when you specifically cut your opinion (from) being viewed by the public, and you get sued — you lose our taxpayer dollars,” the community member said. “Both are things you’re sued for and you’re going to be sued again for this.”
With Richardson’s no vote, the grant guidelines passed on the consent agenda without any discussion amongst councilmembers 6 to 1.
Community members stick up for Granite Park
Following a big court ruling last week over the Granite Park Sports Complex, more than half a dozen community members showed up to Thursday’s city council meeting speaking out against the City of Fresno evicting the park’s operator.
Supporters and employees of the operator, the Central Valley Community Sports Foundation, showed up Thursday to urge the Fresno City Council against evicting the nonprofit from Granite Park, and to wait until after the nonprofit appeals last week’s court ruling.
Fresno County Superior Court Judge Jonathan Skiles ruled that the nonprofit sports foundation breached the lease it had with the City of Fresno to operate Granite Park. Now it appears the foundation, run by Terrence Frazier, is seeking to appeal the outcome in the case.
Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria, who is married to Frazier, even gave a fiery public comment criticizing the City of Fresno and its priorities. Soria, who said she was there on “her own personal time,” previously served on the city council from 2015 to 2022.
She also brought up how Fresno lost $600,000 to a phishing scam in 2020, and how another $1.6 million was embezzled by the city’s administrator of Measure P tax revenue.
“Why the obsession by some with Granite Park?” Soria asked during public comment. “After years of litigation, enormous public expense and countless hours spending fighting a nonprofit, what has Fresno gained?”
Other public comment criticized the city for not valuing what CVCSF has done ever since taking over a park criticized for its blight a decade ago. It’s unclear what will happen next, as the nonprofit sports foundation continues to fight last week’s court ruling. The council discussed the lawsuit in closed session Thursday.
Reopening project labor agreement negotiations?
With the City of Fresno’s project labor agreement soon to expire, city leaders voted Thursday to renegotiate its terms. The item was sponsored by three councilmembers.
“In terms of the number of pre-apprentices, in terms of how many hours that we’re able to provide them, in terms of how many locals are we able to offer these jobs to — these are all metrics that indicate the successfulness of the PLA,” Maxwell told Fresnoland. “Those are some of the metrics that we are struggling with that we need to find a way to make it make sense.”
He added that renegotiating a project labor agreement is going to zero in on the threshold that would trigger its requirements, which currently sits at a million dollars.
“There’s a lot of strong feelings about whether that number should be the same or whether that ceiling should increase,” Maxwell said. “I think (Dyer’s) administration is supportive of increasing that dollar amount. They think a million dollars is too low.”
Entertainment zones approved on second reading
The Fresno City Council approved the second and final reading of a new ordinance to establish entertainment zones along Fulton Avenue and other streets in the Brewery District in downtown Fresno.
The entertainment zones would only take place after the approval of special permits for specific events. These select conditions allow for alcohol to be consumed in public, but only within the zones themselves.
Hundreds of housing units headed to Fresno?
A downtown housing project that’s taken more than a decade to get off the ground due to financing issues was finally greenlit after getting the funding it needed through the bond market, and approval by the Fresno City Council unanimously on Thursday.
The project would provide 174 apartment units in downtown Fresno at The Park at South Stadium Apartments.
Additionally, the city council approved $9.6 million in loans to 1101 Fulton Mall LLC to rehabilitate the historic Helm Building in downtown Fresno, which would provide 98 apartment units, nine of which would be designated as affordable.
