fresno elections 2008

In general, I believe the City should be willing to help defray the cost of infrastructure to incentivize downtown redevelopment. I believe those investment decisions should be based on well-thought-out criteria and locally adopted policy. Unfortunately, the City of Fresno does not have a policy or clearly defined priorities in place to guide investment decisions like the one proposed by Forest City. The first step should be to develop policy and then evaluate Forest City’s proposal against the investment criteria set forth in the policy. This approach will take a little more work up front by our elected officials and staff, but it will serve the City and our downtown redevelopment plans well down the road. We have very limited resources for these efforts. We must do everything we can to make sure we get the greatest possible (and measurable) impact from our investments.