Fresno: The Jurassic Park of Politics
Rural areas are predominantly conservative. Local governments look at new ideas with distrust, something we witness constantly at Fresno County Board of Supervisors meetings. Supervisors can taunt a speaker who presents “liberal” ideas. They don’t argue, they attack.
Such public meetings are meant to be a forum in which elected officials and community members argue and debate ideas about how to implement policy that affects all the residents. Unfortunately, that is not our reality.
City of Fresno governance isn’t much different, even though here and there City Council members show some “modern” gestures, albeit misguided.
For instance, on Aug. 15, a harsh anti-camping ordinance was approved that basically bans homeless people, threatening them with jail time and fines (see our front-page story, “Are They Supposed to Kill Themselves?”). Fresno received plenty of funding for several years to resolve the issue but did little. And now it has decided to go after the homeless.
This is bizarre behavior, a backward culture of making others pay for the City’s own incompetence and lack of goodwill and basic intelligence.
But it’s not a surprise.
Fresno is growing fast, and new neighborhoods are being built continuously. Such construction is mostly for the middle and upper classes, with little or no affordable housing, deepening the class gap and pushing hundreds of people to homelessness.
Developers control the City of Fresno. New construction is popping everywhere to the point that you can’t see an empty spot anywhere. And the houses are all the same, all tight with a little separation in between.
And no green areas. None. Where are the children of the families populating those new neighborhoods supposed to play? The lack of green areas, or play areas, is a basic component of our daily life. Major cities have parks and plazas for the population to walk and socialize. But not in Fresno. More cement and less green also means more heat.
City Council members are afraid to demand that developers make a plaza or a small park every, let’s say, 100 houses. They are afraid because developers are good campaign donors.
Remember that one of the main developers in Fresno, Darius Assemi (of Granville Homes), donated generously to defeat local Measure P (parks), which ultimately passed a few years ago. This measure will help to remodel existing parks and build others in underserved areas, but it can’t obligate developers to build parks when creating new developments.
New houses—in reality, small houses, condos and/or apartments—are continually being built in Fresno without green spaces nearby. Thanks to our City Council members for that.
Till next month.
Your understanding of the housing problem in Fresno is that too many apartments and small houses are being built without parks? How do you reconcile this with the fact that Fresno has one of the worst rental unit shortages in the nation?
Apartments are not “popping up everywhere” and the city has way too much underutilized infill—that’s the problem. Why is everyone in Fresno so stubbornly unwilling to read up on this issue?