fresno elections 2008

The City needs to be run like a business: and that means it has a balanced budget every year as required by law and it schedules an adequate reserve for use in leaner years. By the same token, the City needs to involve its citizens and stakeholders in setting budget priorities just like many successful businesses involve their management, directors and employees annually. What is missing in our budget process, with our Strong Mayor form of government, is the meaningful input and involvement of our citizenry. I propose beginning the budget process with a joint public meeting with the Mayor and the Council where all citizens and stakeholders have a voice in setting the priorities for government spending, revenues and cuts. I believe that the best solutions to our budget concerns in any given year are very possibly with our citizenry. And, I also believe that an informed and involved citizenry is one that makes for the best government. In specific answer to your question, and without such public involvement, I believe that we need to first review all fees and charges and make sure we are getting full cost recovery, then we should look at reducing costs that don’t affect city services, such as those spent on consultants and on duplicative departments such as our film, education or economic development departments. Next, we could move to cuts in services that are the least essential, then—and only then, as a last resort, should we look at raising fees/charges/taxes.

I appreciate Mayor Autry’s willingness to put forth ideas on downtown Fresno and the Fulton Mall. His ideas have generated more discussion and the formation of several interest groups such as the Cultural Arts District Committee and the Downtown Coalition. We are now not devoid of ideas or of studies and plans to implement those ideas. What we are lacking is bold leadership. We need a summit where the City Council, the Mayor, all interest groups and stakeholders come together, dust off all of the reports and studies that have been done over the years and, together, negotiate an action plan for downtown and the Fulton Mall that very day. I plan on pushing for such a summit. I believe we can move forward on downtown issues just as we did when the City and County committed to a 10 year plan to end homelessness last fall. I support Mayor Autry’s ideas for a river and a fountain district, but I believe they can be funded by private enterprise, not the City. We can make downtown more than an 8 to 5 government center by increasing housing downtown, by having homes above retail shops like other urban centers and by giving incentives to property and business owners one by one. I am skeptical about Fresno’s current model to grant exclusive rights on large blocks of property to specific developers and, at the least, believe we need to hold such exclusive rights developers to strict timelines or forfeit their agreements. Regarding what we can do for the Fulton Mall: the Fulton Mall is already more than an 8 to 5 government center. It is a bustling retail area on weekends and can be further enhanced with event tie-ins with the arts and Chinatown districts, with more homes above retail shops, with guided walking and bicycle paths and increased attention to maintenance and façade development via the PBID once again being discussed. Further, we need to bring the Mayor, Council, all stakeholders, restaurant and nightclub owners and potential owners together to see how we can restructure our debt, keep downtown evening facilities open and provide free parking to patrons after 6 pm like we have everywhere else in the City.

The question I ask is why are we discussing this now? When the City granted Forest City the exclusive rights to develop the designated property instead of the proposals of any other developers or of any individual property owners, surely they should have done so with all the facts before them about what Forest City was willing to invest and what the City was willing to invest. I believe we need to completely change the way we do business at City Hall. And, a good place to start is to reopen all exclusive rights developer agreements and to, together, discuss costs, investments of all parties, timelines, etc. and, of course, to do so with maximum community and stakeholder input. Barring that, the City could help defray parts of costs in public use areas, but most certainly should not be willing to invest solely in that redevelopment project over all others, current or future.

There are a lot of separate efforts underway in our community to generate jobs via the Regional Jobs Initiative, the City’s economic development department, the EDC, etc. In fact, we have as many efforts underway on this as we have downtown revitalization plans sitting on shelves. It is time for the Mayor and the Council to take more action and provide a strike force to recruit emerging technologies to our area such as solar, alternative energy industries that convert waste to power and industries that prepare us for the future such as a high speed rail engine, rail car manufacturing and maintenance yard. We need to refocus our attention on the completion of undeveloped industrial parks such as Roeding and streamline the way the City does business so we are set up to do tomorrow’s thinking. I continue to be told by investors who have attempted to do business in Fresno that it takes too long, cooperation is lacking between the Mayor and the Council, electeds interfere with professional staff decision making and specifications in the General Plan aren’t meshed with existing rules. All this causes unneeded delay. I propose putting a stop to this by enacting the “Good Reforms For A More Open and Transparent Government” #22 which prohibits Council member interference with City staff as they carry out their professional duties and places the Council back it its role to be sure their decisions—such as General Plan streamlining—are carried out.

The City needs to do all it can to rejuvenate its aging—and ailing—neighborhoods, many of which are in District 4. It is unconscionable that some neighborhoods have more access to City services and amenities than others and that we have not been committed to providing the additional services, amenities, maintenance and attention our aging neighborhoods deserve. To rejuvenate these neighborhoods, we need to reallocate our “rejuvenation” resources to the neighborhoods with the greatest needs, place all of our neighborhoods on a regular maintenance schedule, make sure we are diligent with code enforcement in all areas and that our amenities—parks, libraries, schools, public transportation, retail, access to City government, etc.—are similar throughout the City. I support both large-scale projects and smaller-scale projects as long as no individuals have their property taken away from them for the benefit of a private developer. However, in District 4 and in many parts of our City, we don’t need “projects” as much as we need re-attention to providing the City services and amenities we promised to our residents when their homes were first built.

I would prevent sprawl by having the political will to support organized growth and by working with the Council to draw a line on development and not go beyond it or provide city services and amenities to any new developments outside the line. Other cities have done it successfully via “urban service boundaries” and “green lines” and they also have required job triggers before a development outside the line can be built. For instance, to encourage developers to build housing near jobs, some cities require a certain number of jobs to be in place in a nearby industrial area before a development can proceed. This is worth considering here.

Our City is in dire need of more park and open space areas in the City. This is especially true in District 4. I am disappointed with the closure of Palm Lakes and also with the lost dreams of building Granite Park into a premier sports facility in District 4. To turn this trend around in District 4 specifically, I believe we should expand the number of schools participating in the agreement between the City and Fresno Unified School District to share green space with the surrounding community. We should require minimum landscape guidelines for new commercial strip malls and we should work with existing strip mall owners to set realistic timelines for adding neighborhood buffers and landscaping improvements to their properties over time. We should also work with entities such as the Metropolitan Flood Control District, the Fresno District Fair and the Fresno Irrigation District to enhance open spaces and the seasonal public use of facilities under their purview. Park impact fees on developments, authorized in 2005, have provided a revenue stream for parks in newer areas of the City, the PARCS division has put together an impressive growth plan and we need to make sure it is carried out and it is funded. Regarding funding: we need to continue to get our share of State/Federal monies, we need to continue to forge partnerships for cost savings and we need to be steadfast on our continued collection of equitable park impact fees from developers.

I support the City’s current approach to quash gangs and I support the City’s involvement in regional efforts as promoted by the State’s CALGRIP program. We need to continue our 3 prong effort of intervention, prevention and suppression. Unlike the incumbent, I’m willing to spend additional tax dollars to quash gangs because I know that when a City has crime and gang problems, it is much harder to attract new industry, to create new jobs and to attract the best employees for our existing employers. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

I oppose an independent police auditor because I haven’t yet seen the IPA model do what it was intended to do in any City. First, they are not truly independent. It isn’t long before one side or the other, depending on who they report to, deems the auditor as being too political and as being unfair and biased. Second, they start small and soon have an insatiable appetite. There isn’t one City I’ve researched that hasn’t had to increase their IPA costs annually by as much as 100 percent. How are we going to fund this new expenditure with such an escalating price tag? Lastly, if the police chief isn’t doing his job, the Mayor and Council must be willing to hold the police chief accountable. Before we see a whole new bureaucracy set up in haste, I want to set up a policy that requires the police chief to sit down regularly with the Council in closed session to thoroughly review all complaints that have been received.

I am skeptical of this proposal. I haven’t been told a good reason why we need to create a new bureaucracy—a new administration, a new executive manager, a new board, a new set of attorneys and other professional staff-- when we already have all of those things in place with the Council and the City now. The Council just voted themselves a 44% raise and now they want to reduce their responsibilities? They are seeking to reduce their workload, and, in reality, are removing themselves from having to make unpopular political choices. Moreover, they have proposed this without having all stakeholders at the table.