Quote of the Week

“Our goal is to make sure that we don’t have a strike. If it happens, it’s because the district has not listened to its educators.”

Manuel Bonilla, Fresno Teachers Association president. The FTA is poised to strike after Fresno Unified failed to meet a deadline imposed by the union. The strike authorization vote is scheduled for Oct. 18.

This Week in Fresnoland

Residents of Trails’ End Mobile Home Park face eviction pending a decision from the Fresno City Council.

Back in April, residents of the trailer park received notice that the land was being sold for profit and that they had 12 months to sell or move their homes, Fresnoland’s Pablo Orihuela writes. A hearing on Thursday – which will determine whether owner Harmony Communities has appropriately analyzed the effects of the proposed evictions – is all that stands between the dwindling number of Trails’ End tenants and homelessness.

City leadership has been absent. “We ask them, but they never come. We haven’t seen them since, I want to say last year?” Patricia Shawn, one of the few tenants left, said. They’ve been asking for the city council to come see the state of the land since the sale. No one has answered. 

Shawn has so far been unsuccessful finding new housing. If the sale goes through, it is likely that she will face homelessness.

At least two major worker strikes on the table in Fresno

Hundreds of healthcare workers joined the picket line in front of the Kaiser Permanente Fresno Medical Center on Wednesday morning to strike for higher wages in response to what the union calls a staffing crisis, Fresnoland’s Julianna Morano reports.

Wednesday marked the start of a three-day strike at Kaiser’s facilities in multiple states. The nonprofit healthcare giant’s contract with workers expired at the end of September. Over 75,000 workers in a coalition of unions are participating in the walkout nationwide.

Julianna also penned this helpful Q&A for patients during the hospital worker strike.

And, across town at the Fresno Unified School District, teachers want smaller class sizes and more support for special education courses, among other things, Julianna reported. The district blew past the deadline imposed last Friday, so now a strike seems more likely. 

The FTA represents 4000 educators, and if they decide to strike, the district would turn to volunteers, substitutes and independent contractors. Most education strikes are on the shorter side: teachers went on strike for just three days in Los Angeles and only seven in Oakland. 

The strike authorization vote is scheduled for Oct. 18.

The Fresno City Council is weighing whether to give a tax break to a wealthy developer

In its ongoing urban revitalization efforts to court developers, the city council has run into the unfortunate and constant problem with development: the budget isn’t there, Gregory Weaver writes for Fresnoland.

The council considered waiving a special tax on a 218-home Granville Homes subdivision in southeast Fresno, but Georgeanne White, city manager, says that the tax break – meant to prevent deficit and fund policing and firefighting – could set a dangerous precedent: the wealthiest residents paying little to no taxes while middle to low-income taxpayers pick up the slack. City Attorney Andrew Janz said that the tax break was “legally indefensible.”

SEDA, the second Clovis they’re building in the same area, has similar woes: the 45,000-home mega-development would be a net drain on the city’s general fund without new special taxes, according to Public Works Director Scott Mozier. Many of these issues stem from a 2003 agreement that slashed the city’s cut of property tax revenues on subdivisions by 19%, an earlier iteration of the extremely-Fresno impulse to build homes on the city’s outermost edges.

City Councilmember Mike Karbassi proposed abolishing the legal entity that collects these taxes altogether. For what it’s worth, he and Granville CEO Darius Assemi host a podcast together. Doesn’t get any stranger or bedfellow-ier than that.

No one likes Clovis Unified’s policy for trans and gender variant students. 

The recently implemented Student Site Plan (SSP) allows students to state their gender identity, gender expression, preferred name and pronouns as well as their assigned sex; it does not protect any of this information from their parents, Diego Vargas reports for Fresnoland.

Advocates for expanded parental rights hate that the information isn’t automatically shared with them, advocates for trans and gender variant students hate that the information is not explicitly shielded from those parents.

An earlier version of the SSP, called the Gender Acknowledgement Plan (GAP) allowed for students to inform the district if parental involvement might put the student’s safety at risk. It was scrapped.

For now, the district appears to take a case-by-case approach to forcibly outing trans students to their parents. Allison Murphy, a Clovis resident, called the new policy a disgrace. “…this policy of outing students is extremely harmful and alarming … not every child has a safe place at home,” she said. Murphy lost her transgender daughter to suicide in 2010.

Oh my god, are we still talking about this? Yokuts Valley. 

Because nothing can ever be easy, Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig continues to refer to Yokuts Valley as Squaw Valley, a name officially designated as a slur, a name removed from almost 650 geographic features and locations, Omar Shaikh Rashad (Fresnoland) writes. Moreover, the federal government’s decision to rename the Valley only applies to federal agencies and maps, not necessarily to a local government entity like Fresno County. Magsig has made it clear that, even though maps might say Yokuts Valley, the actual street signs won’t be changing anytime soon. 

The original name is divisive. While it seems that a small minority of indigenous people are fine with the name, according to Roman Rain Tree – a prominent indigenous advocate for the name change – a sizable majority considers it a slur.

Outside the Lines

Farmers in New Cuyama face a lawsuit from two of the nation’s biggest carrot growers, who say that groundwater restrictions are unfairly distributed. 
Also, note this story about sheepherding, an industry that relies on exploiting immigrants as seasonal labor, often under brutal conditions. David Seligman, executive director of the labor rights nonprofit Towards Justice, said, “These are actually the most scared workers I’ve ever encountered.”

Block Beat

SOUTHWEST FRESNO: Elaine’s Pet Resorts faces a discrimination lawsuit after firing two employees who tested positive for doctor prescribed medications. Fresno Bee

CLOVIS: Riley’s Brew Pub has the best happy hour according to a Fresno Bee poll. They won 55% of the vote. Fresno Bee

RIVER BLUFF: Construction has begun on the newest Raising Cane’s location at the Marketplace at El Paseo. It is expected to open its doors in the spring of 2024. Fresno Bee 

Department of New Construction

MUSCATEL: Applications for a development permit have been filed to build 128 homes on roughly 16 acres of land at the northeast corner of North Blythe Avenue West Dayton Avenues. The application filed by Precision Civil Engineering on behalf of DR Horton proposes “modifications to the zoning code to reduce the minimum lot size, street side setback, rear setback, and increase maximum lot coverage.”

MAYFAIR:  An application for a development permit has been filed to build a four-unit building with an attached carport, office building and laundry room in the 3300 block of East McKinley Avenue.

Around Town

It’s that time again. The Big Fresno Fair kicks off today and runs through Sunday, Oct. 15. KMPH

Fulton Street Coffee hosts @scorpionsunfrog, a queer latinx artist, for Art Hop on Oct. 5. Instagram

The third annual Fall Fest features free pumpkin painting, a costume contest, free food and a resource fair on Saturday, Oct. 28. Instagram

CMAC has a video game content workshop tonight at 6 p.m. It’s mainly focused on recording and streaming gameplay. Downtown Fresno

Next Week in Public Meetings

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Tommy is the author of Toplines, the Fresnoland newsletter curating the top stories in the Central Valley. He thinks he's very funny.