Tower District voters’ favorite daughter-father political team joined forces publicly last month to advocate for continued toxic diesel exhaust exposure in Fresno and beyond. Annalisa Perea represents District 1 on the Fresno City Council, while Henry R. Perea, a former City Council member and Fresno County supervisor, now works as a “logistics consultant,” according to Julianna Morano’s reporting in Fresnoland on Oct. 9.
At issue was AB 98, a new statewide law requiring meager setbacks between warehouse loading bays and “sensitive receptors,” that is, kids in schools and parks and families in their homes. Both Pereas argued the 300- to 500-foot minimums were just too much for the industry to bear, despite being far below the 1,000 feet called for by state health experts.
At a press conference hosted by the Fresno Chamber of Commerce in late September, Channel 47’s Hannah Gonzales quoted Annalisa Perea criticizing the state law as a “one size fits all approach in a state as diverse as California.” Non sequitur aside, her use of the word diverse in this context is an ugly attempt to misappropriate the language of impacted, vulnerable populations while calling for even more environmentally racist impacts, specifically toxic diesel exhaust. A major aspect of Fresno’s “diversity” comes in the form of stagnant air leading to higher levels of ground-level air pollution and for longer hours. Stronger restrictions are needed here, not weaker ones.
Meanwhile, Perea senior joined in, writing in an e-mail to Fresnoland reporter Morano, “I believe [AB 98] will make it more difficult for Fresno to build and attract these types of businesses and the jobs that come with them.” As reported in the June 2021 Community Alliance (“South Fresno Community versus Industrial Pollution”), developers of warehouses have been backing Annalisa Perea at record amounts since she first announced her run for City Council three years ago, including tens of thousands of dollars from companies her father was serving as a lobbyist.
While Henry R. Perea no longer registers with the City as a lobbyist, he has been lobbying publicly before the Fresno Council of Governments (COG) on the issue of Measure C since at least last October. He played a key role in derailing a community-centered transportation sales tax development process after having served as one of 10 people supposedly committed to an honest effort to include the public. The county’s 20-year, half-cent sales tax dedicated to all modes of transportation expires in 2027.
In October 2023, Perea the elder directly attacked, some would say slandered, Veronica Garibay of Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability and Sandra Celedon of Fresno Building Healthy Communities, who led the opposition to a deeply flawed Measure C proposal in 2022 and then joined a 10-person committee to develop an inclusive tax renewal effort. Perea served on that committee as an industry representative.
“They’re very strategic,” Perea said of Garibay and Celedon to the 15 county mayors and one county supervisor who comprise the COG Policy Board. “They’re always three steps ahead of you…There are some poison pills in here that you don’t want to live with.”
Perea also lied to the board about the history of Measure C’s origins and its difficult renewal process 20 years ago, which was only possible after an extensive community-wide process, the kind he now seeks to kill.
Despite having stopped registering as a lobbyist with the City, as a member of the High-Speed Rail Authority’s Board of Directors Perea is required to annually submit a Statement of Economic Interests. He reports working on “human resources/land use consulting” beneath the shingle of Perea Consulting Services. His client list includes major developer Lance Kashian, Fresno; waste hauler Mid Valley Disposal, Fresno; Amarok Security Fencing, South Carolina; advertising firm Outfront, New York; business consultancy Cruz Strategies, Sacramento; and cannabis company Element 7 IIc, Firebaugh and Mendota.
Chip off the old block Annalisa preceded her September Chamber of Commerce performance with an attack on community health advocates during an open session at a City Council meeting in late September. There she joined with Council Member Mike Karbassi in blaming Leadership Counsel’s client, South Fresno Community Alliance, for taking legal action against the City’s unlawful, city-wide environmental impact report.
It’s a long, involved story centered on the California Environmental Quality Act and the City’s many efforts to circumvent the law, resulting in adverse health impacts on south Fresno residents. The City now finds it must adhere to the law and conduct proper health impact assessments from residential and industrial developments. Perea and Karbassi whined that they couldn’t find $300,000 in the City budget to evaluate a new affordable housing development but at that same meeting awarded $7 million to the police department for a new helicopter.
“City attorney, who was it that kind of created this delay? Who sued us on the PEIR (program environmental impact report)?” asked Perea. “I just want to make that clear. This project is delayed because, in essence, we have to do an EIR, and we have to start from scratch to some degree.”
Karbassi, brought to office and mentored by Darius Assemi, head of Granville Homes, jumped right in. “I would encourage you to reach out to the people at the South Fresno Community Alliance and ask them why they took the action they took that puts important work like your work and work across this entire city, north, south, east and west, at severe jeopardy because when we’re facing a housing crisis, we’re facing an economic crisis, we are in a lot of trouble and the media is not really reporting this, but this is an example of the fallout of their work.”
Perea politics are what ails Fresno, and its fallout is profound. When it comes to development, they’re anti-health and anti-community. The Tower District residents who keep bringing them to office will soon find the proverbial chickens coming home to roost when Producers Dairy tears down the Zacky Farms silos on H Street to expand its facilities. Will AB 98’s new restrictions, however inadequate, be applied to the project and its expansion for new daily diesel truck trips within a few hundred feet of family homes? Or will Producers mute community opposition with the donation of the old Central Valley Cheese company building on Belmont to Radio Bilingüe?
Politicians are lining up to say yes. So stay tuned, but know the words of City Council Member Miguel Arias, as reported by Fresnoland’s Pablo Orihuela, are misleading at best: “By converting this to the headquarters of Radio Bilingüe,” Arias said, “it will allow the truck traffic that has been coming into the residential neighborhood to now be relocated.” Brace for impact, Tower residents. You voted for it.
