FRESNO DESK - The most visible character of metropolitan Fresno is its downtown, showcased as it is 'midst three major freeways. Lately, as all can see, it has become a cluster of major governmental office buildings, a handful of retail stores, state and federal court edifices, elaborated card room casinos, motels, hotels, cultural, and amusement centers.
Fresno downtown's high visibility gives it a political dominance as well, as mayors, city and county legislators are clearly judged on how well this economic engine of the regional urban area fails or flourishes.
Its not the only downtown, of course, that is failing to flourish. And its not the only urban area whose buildings go back to the turn of the Century which have lost their customers and consequently their investors.
But what is different about Fresno, California is that crystal clear vision of its strong mayor, Jim Patterson to utilize City Hall's few economic resources and spend redevelopment agency funds in order to spark the resurgence in this traditional business district. The strong-mayor Charter of Fresno City Hall is ingeniously crafted so that the mayor's focused vision will always be on the interdependency of neighborhoods with the economic structure of the larger community and the dynamic of the economic engine of downtown Fresno.
It is a given that members of the Fresno City Council are at City Hall to focus on neighborhood improvements which are badly needed and to work cooperatively with the strong mayor to redevelop Fresno's downtown economic engine.
The Fresno downtown is experienceing a very mild growth but has too few economic resources to sustain itself, at present. Likely to experience continuous declining retail activity and an increasing concentration of government offices and buildings, the entire City is at risk of losing this asset unless immediate emergency action is begun. Managerial, financial, legal, and governmental offices must remain in the economic mainstream in order to remain effective and relevant.
Fresno's central city continues to offer a location where channels carrying information of potential relevance to corporate offices should be concentrated. This information is produced, stored, and exchanged through a dense inter-organizational network. What little retail activity that now remains in downtown Fresno is generally keyed to the needs of only the daytime government office workers or of the lower income households who live in public housing and low income apartment conversions, and inexpensive and crowded nearby condos.
The challenges that Fresno's downtown present to City Hall are daunting.
It is no longer possible to deal with these shortcomings by temporarily transforming downtown into an industrial park for under-financed developers,
wild-eyed speculators, and the un-initiated who are new to government service. City Hall can no longer afford to pretend to regulate the growth that the private market initiates. Fresno City Hall is being called upon to keep downtown from deteriorating further as an economic and cultural centerpiece for the larger San Joaquin Valley region.
The Annual Report of the Grand Jury had this in mind when it reported, this week, '...that efficiency would improve if the Redevelopment Agency, which carries out projects in blighted areas, be housed under the chief administrative officer...' instead of the agency having its own director and reporting only to the Fresno City Council.
The mayor's downtown revitalization should have the unanimous support of the City Council members. The best publicized political cooperation has often centerd upon revitalization of traditional downtowns like that of Fresno. However, the ghosts of Fresno's past still haunt City Hall.
One of these specters still confounding City Hall planners is that original founders allowed the Southern Pacific Railroad to determine the original Fresno City lay-out. This resulted in the original township taking form along a lateral line that coalesced with SP's right-of-way, not a North-South orienation.
And so, downtown Fresno streets remain in that odd alignment today, some 17 degrees slanted to the left, while adjoining neighborhoods are aligned along a perfect North-South axis, as one faces the map of Fresno.
Thus, downtown Fresno now has a different 'heading' than its neghborhoods, and is a symbol of poorly coordinated City governance.
This week an excellent example of the good intentions of those with a limited perspective that places form over function has again raised a ghostly image in Fresno City Hall. It was a statement attributed to Fresno Redevelopment Agency director, Dan Fitzpatrick, in a statement to a news reporter opposing the Fresno Grand Jury recommendations on City Hall coordination. Fitzpatrick responded with, '...redevelopment would get lost in the shuffle if not housed separately within city government.'
Redevelopment is another form of bureaucracy in Fresno and most urban centers. In Fresno, since the late 1950's redevelopment was a local agency controlled by the Fresno City Council members. It has been alarmingly ineffective in accomplishing its econoimic objectives.
Today City Hall is hard put to cite any long term economic benefit for the hundreds of millions in tax dollars lost on shaky business dealings that City Council members get the City involved in through their control over the Redevelopment Agency funds.
No wonder, there are, by this time, many people in Fresno with a vested interest in keeping City Hall and the voters in the dark. But, it is really time for redevelopment to come out into the light of a new day.
That is why the Grand Jury report has been taken to heart by mayor Jim Patterson. He told reporters on Wednesday, that he welcomed those recommendations. So do the taxpayers of Fresno. So should every member of the Fresno City Council who voted "no" on the mayor's request to use redevelopment agency tax monies to revitalize the economic engine that is downtown Fresno.
