Good morning! It’s Friday, Dec. 19. This is Rob & Danielle.
💭Only darkness every day? More clouds, more (Fresno) cold — high of 51. NOAA
🚨Police lease: Fresno carves out $12 million to renovate a landlord’s building so city police can rent it. Fresnoland
📳Can you hear this? Verizon wireless plans to construct an 80-foot communications tower at Van Ness and Olive avenues in Fresno’s Tower District. The Fresno Bee
1. County transportation board approves Measure C renewal plan
A majority of Fresno County’s mayors voted Thursday evening to officially approve the expenditure plan for the renewal of Measure C, the transportation sales tax, planned for the November 2026 ballot.
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer led the charge, with Clovis Mayor Vong Mouanoutoua in support along with the county’s west side mayors, in a 10-4 vote. The plan was modified to reduce the county’s required expenditures in disadvantaged unincorporated communities.
That amendment didn’t sway Fresno County Supervisor Garry Bredefeld.
Much of the opposition focused on fears that the measure wouldn’t allow for enough road expansion. Under the plan, cities and the counties aren’t allowed to spend more than 5% of their Measure C dollars on expanding roads until every road has hit an average of 65 on the pavement condition index, with some safety exceptions.
But now the plan heads to the County Board of Supervisors, where Supervisors Bredefeld and Buddy Mendes have made it clear that they’ll reject this plan in favor of an alternative that vastly reduces public transit spending to expand more roads.
Proponents of this plan could bypass the supervisors by gathering signatures to qualify for the ballot instead.
Clovis Mayor Vong Mouanoutoua: “The goal of this measure is, ‘fix all of our roads’. And that’s what we’re doing.”
2. ‘You don’t trust us’
A marathon debate on a region-defining megadevelopment ended just before midnight Thursday with most of the City Council backing Mayor Jerry Dyer’s pivot from seeking a new 45,000-home sprawling suburb to studying a scaled-down “business park alternative.”
At least for now.
Fresnoland’s Gregory Weaver was inside the hours-long, standing-room-only meeting that saw more than four dozen locals speak out in overwhelming opposition to the project. A few called on the council to kill the project outright, while others criticized some city leaders for their ties to developers.
At least one person challenged Council President Mike Karbassi to recuse himself from voting because of his relationship with Granville Homes developer Darius Assemi. Karbassi is frequently identified as a “cohost” on a weekly podcast on Assemi’s Granville/GV Wire website.
Check back with Fresnoland later today for a full breakdown of what’s still on the table for development in the region (hint: pretty much everything) and what comes next.
3. Fresno changes ‘sit, lie, sleep’ law
After briefly tabling the discussion, the Fresno City Council OK’d some changes to the city’s anti-camping law, Fresnoland’s Pablo Orihuela reports.
The amendments added loitering to the list of violations and gave the city attorney more tools to pursue penalties against reoffenders. Councilmembers also removed the phrase “site, lie or sleep” from the ordinance.
North Fresno Councilmember Nick Richardson urged — and initially convinced — his council colleagues to postpone the vote for a month, saying the law’s “wording needs to be tightened.”
A short time later, however, Councilmembers Miguel Arias and Mike Karbassi reopened the debate and pushed for a vote, saying city residents wanted to see more urgent action.
Councilmember Mike Karbassi: “I’m pretty tired of getting complaints by residents because they want to use public spaces and they can’t.”
