What's at stake?
It took nearly two decades to break ground on the first regional park for southeast Fresno. Community leaders spent over a decade trying to get the city to make the massive new park and soccer fields a priority. They want their efforts commemorated in a name that captures more of the spirit of southeast Fresno.
The new regional park in southeast Fresno may officially be christened the “Southeast Fresno Sports Complex” following this Thursday’s Fresno City Council meeting.
The name is simple enough. For some southeast Fresno residents, it’s a little too simple.
The Southeast Fresno Community Economic Development Association said they believe the new park should be named, instead, after community leader Jose Leon Barraza. SEFCEDA said Barraza, their ex-CEO, is representative of the southeast Fresno community, and played a critical role in getting the park built in the first place.
For residents like Pedro Navarro Cruz, chair of the SEFCEDA board, the naming of the park holds weight.
Years of hard work by local community members were spent making sure a region that is in desperate need of more green space could finally see a state-of-the-art park in their neighborhood.
“It takes a lot of sacrifice…a lot of literal blood, sweat and tears to have community investments like this take place,” said Cruz, recounting over a decade’s worth of work that went into getting the park built.
To him, it’s not just about getting the park named after a community leader. It’s about the residents getting recognition for the hard work they’ve put in and ensuring that their efforts aren’t forgotten.
“Our story is being diluted,” Cruz said.
Barraza told Fresnoland on Monday that it was “quite an honor” and “humbling” to have the local group advocate for the new park to be named after him.
How did we get here?
Southeast Fresno City Councilmember Brandon Vang announced that the park would be named the Southeast Fresno Sports Complex at a news conference last week.
The new park will be at 2155 South Peach Avenue. In 1916, the land first housed a research center run by the United States Department of Agriculture. The research center moved to Parlier in 2006, and the federal government donated the land to the City of Fresno for the purposes of turning it into a park.
It took over a decade for the city to find the will – and resources – to get the new park off the ground, with persistent nudging from the community.
Fresno city and community leaders, including Barraza, broke ground on the park in February. At the groundbreaking ceremony, it was announced that the park’s name would be up to the community to decide through online polling.
Barraza said that announcement caught community members like him by surprise, as they were hearing about it for the first time alongside the media. He said that a lot of volunteer work to get the park built came from groups like Fresno Building Healthy Communities, local soccer and church groups and other neighborhood residents.
“All of a sudden, all of those groups were not important,” Barraza said, disappointed to hear that the community would not get input on naming their new park.
Potential options from the initial online poll included “The Vineyard,” “Golden Fields Park” and “The Grove.” According to city documents, the online polling, which received over 600 responses, showed a “clear winner” in “Peach Park.”
However, a resolution to name the park based on those results was tabled at a March Fresno City Council meeting after Councilmember Nelson Esparza said he believed the park should be named once the southeast district had a new councilmember.
The city’s fifth district council seat was vacant for the first quarter of the year following then-councilmember Luis Chavez’s election to the Fresno County Board of Supervisors. Vang defeated three challengers vying for the seat in a March special election, including Barraza.
Local community groups like SEFCEDA also took issue with the available naming options for the park being too vague and not representative of the surrounding community.
Venancio Gaona is the chair of the Latino Educational Issues Roundtable organization, one of the groups that have also tried to lobby for the park to be named after Barraza.
Gaona said he had a meeting with Vang last month to talk about multiple issues, including the naming of the new park. Gaona said Vang had told him the city received feedback from “about 200-300” people from a more recent online survey, but specific details were not shared at the time.
“We’re asking for suggestions that reflect: Our District 5 people, Our rich culture, stories, and people, Someone who has made a meaningful impact on our community,” the post reads.
Councilmember Vang’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
“It feels like it’s another example of the southeast Fresno community being neglected,” Gaona said following Vang’s announcement last week.
Following the initial March poll, SEFCEDA released a press release arguing against the generic naming options of the park.
“Naming the park after a respected community figure would reinforce the values of leadership, teamwork, and empowerment that this project represents,” reads the press release.
Cruz said that he is “eternally” grateful for the community-building that Barraza provided people like him during the making of the new park. He said the advocacy involved in getting the park made was the first time many young people like him engaged in public speaking and community organizing.
“It helped me transition from a young man into a community leader,” Cruz said.
For Barraza, however, it’s not about the park being named after him. The name, he said, should reflect the hard work it took to get the land turned into a community space.
“It’s what I represent in terms of the community,” Barraza said. “The organizations, the many individuals who have volunteered their time to this project. There used to be nothing here. This land was totally neglected.”
He added that the naming could also serve to inspire future generations to go and do the same work he and Cruz took part in.
“It provides encouragement to residents, to our younger generations, to be involved and engaged, in improving the quality of life in their neighborhoods,” Barraza said.
The park’s new name still needs to be approved by the city council. The Fresno City Council is scheduled to vote on the new name at a meeting Thursday, Aug. 14, at 9 a.m.
