Weekly Journal: Week 1
March 25, 2008 — Tuesday is the day of the week when the City Council meets!
I am making a transition to weekly journals. The daily blogs were wonderful, but I felt a bit raw after writing them on a daily basis. And — honestly, my husband missed me when I’d stay on the computer every night until wee hours in the morning.
In the interest of work-life balance Tuesdays are now the day for weekly journaling!!! I had thought about weeklies before but Saturday or Sunday wouldn’t be any good because I want to be with the family. Monday or Friday would suck too because no one would read them. Now, because tonight, Tuesday night, was monumental (or at least institutional!) — with the city council’s vote on the Hacienda — I decided that Tuesdays would be perfect!
Tonight we heard a vote of 5-2 in support of the Conditional Use Permit (CUP) application by San Diego Mental Health Systems, Inc. to run a private correctional center (”prison”) within Fresno city limits. We are the first city to approve a Female Rehabilitation Community Correctional Center (FRCCC) in California, where residents will be affected.
Bakersfield has approved a CUP application by MHS, but that FRCCC facility would be located next to a juvenile hall. It would not impact the neighborhood in such a negative way…the way that this FRCCC would!
San Jose and Redding saw the light and refused to allow the state to run prisons inside their city limits. The entire state should be fighting these facilities. It’s simply prison expansion, and it’s happening at the same time that we are losing elementary school teachers in the same neighborhoods!!!
Why should children in kindergarten suffer when prisoners get luxury treatment? Even as a former juvenile hall inmate, I’d choose to help the small kids first, and then I’d figure out how to let non-serious, low-risk offenders take care of themselves — outside of prisons!
I wish that all of you could have been there tonight for the vote by the council. One council member, Mike Dages seemed to have had a revelation. With 550 signatures in his hand he asked that the council meeting be open to public comment from those that had not yet been heard — you could have heard a pin drop when his motion to open to public comment waited for its second. It never came!!! Without a second the motion died and the crowd booed in disbelief at the other council members.
Dages was making the profound point to his colleagues that an approval of this CUP would set a precedent for the entire city. Any other vacant building in Fresno, including the soon to be vacant IRS building (next to his home), would be up for grabs to the state. Dages is right!
So now that Fresno citizens are beginning to realize just how important it was to fight against this CUP, what can be done? Are we destined to have an FRCCC in the Jane Addams community, and another earmarked for the city by 2010? The lawyer in me says NO — at least not without a fair fight! We have recourse.
Besides asking for the entire process to be reviewed the community plans to initiate a recall against Cynthia Sterling. I would definitely support the effort whole-heartedly.
Remember that Cynthia refused to speak to community leaders during this entire process. Also remember that it is because of her misdeeds that this CUP made it through the planning commission on the first try without any question whatsoever — even though it had not received comment by the police department!
Cynthia voted to approve the CUP tonight. She obviously does not want to engage a community that employs her, and she has repeatedly refused to stand up for what is best for Fresno and District 3. It’s time that we remind City Council about what their job is exactly — not serving the needs of developers, but answering to the community.
What I am personally looking forward to next with regard to this issue:
#1) Fighting AB 76 for its negative impact on communities like Jane Addams (a “concentrated pocket of poverty” according to the Brookings Institution, with the majority of residents living well below the poverty line!)
#2) Asking for a formal review of the CUP decision
#3) Supporting community members in their efforts to recall Cynthia Sterling, and establishing a Community Benefits Agreement for their neighborhood
#4) Which comes as a surprise to even me…Taking the bar exam and joining (or perhaps leading) the legal action against the city for its faulty process and final decision tonight (the nonprofit development of Motel & Parkway Drive will still happen — there are now champions in place in the community that will have support)
Overall, I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t want to work with the City. I know how important it is to have city and county support, but we all need to remember who puts elected officials in place and that is the community. I am here to answer to the community first, and they are not happy. Several community members were in shock tonight — they were wondering just what would happen to their neighborhood, and their neighbors.
It seems that over time elected officials in Fresno may have forgotten who they serve. Cynthia was way too comfortable when she said to me that she “didn’t think people in that neighborhood had a voice and that’s why she was speaking for them.”
I’m not sure if she was interested in developers, or just incompetent, but either way she has now caused some permanent damage on the city AND showed little concern with respect to tax paying, law abiding citizens! The vote tonight gives the community the opportunity to let all elected officials in Fresno know who they need the most! The voters!
All that said…I do have passions outside of politics and my family. Kids are the real reason that I am back.
My focus on youth homeless issues brings me to paying a great complement to the City and the PD. I will continue to go out of my way to pay my respects to Chief Dyer and Mayor Autry when they protect the homeless. I fully appreciate the recent crack down on crimes against the homeless. To the Mayor and Chief: Keep up the good work and I am looking forward to helping direct the efforts to protect homeless and runaway youth next!