A quick response to Joe Mathews ‘Looking for California’s Biggest Wave?’
By Kevin Hall, 1.27.20
With so many flaws in this analysis of Fresno politics (full article below), what really stands out in the superficial “Brown Wave” theme is the writer’s unproven contention that we’ve turned a corner thanks to the city council once again having a majority of Latino members.
He relies on the stereotype of all Latino Dems as progressive, despite this being a group of three moderates and the Republican-in-all-but-registration, Luis Chavez, the DINO who has endorsed Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims for reelection despite her enthusiastic support for Donald Trump. He also backed Tea Party extremist Steve Brandau for Fresno County Supervisor.
Joe Mathews’ writing on the central San Joaquin Valley last caught my eye with an opinion piece from February 2018 in which he extolled the virtues of Fresno-Madera-Clovis menage-de-sprawl. He suggested naming the leapfrog developments across the river up Fwy. 41 “Future Town.” Seriously.
Conveniently, in his skin-deep political analysis, he ignores land use issues except when it serves to falsely praise his Wavers. For example, the Darling Rendering Plant victory he cites has virtually nothing to do with these four; it’s the result of a decades-long battle by Concerned Citizens of West Fresno and Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability. The recent vote merely came as part of the final legal settlement.
Mathews’ depiction of Fresno’s “small-town political culture” opening up thanks to his Wavers is wrong. To jam his “change” narrative through, he conveniently ignores the role of developers and the key votes taken by this council on their behalf, including one to reopen the city’s General Plan a mere five years after a major update. This came at the insistence of residential developers and — with that status quo Fresno twist — Arias tried to help push it through over the holiday when public resistance is lowest. Arias, Chavez and Soria supported it.
But Mathews’ biggest whitewash is here:
The “Brown Wave” politicians, who have been deeply critical of the incentives given to build an Amazon distribution center have pushed the principle that any benefit or exemption given to a large company should also be available to local small businesses.
In reality, their so-called “push” has been for more warehouses and a waiving of public health and environmental protections. Esmeralda Soria and Luis Chavez voted to approve a 2 million s.f. warehouse with more than 6,000 truck and car trips per day and a developer refund fee to push city planning staff into cutting more corners.
Those new industrial developments are being built in South-Central Fresno next to rural unincorporated communities, trailer parks, and schools. Children walk along sidewalk-less streets while the truck and car traffic grows from the Amazon and Ulta distribution centers built before residents could sue.
As for Mathews, Joe should note that what’s happening in South-Central is a repeat of what happened in West Fresno, where the rendering plant has operated — and still does — for half a century without a conditional use permit, i.e., the same public health and environmental reviews ignored by Soria and Chavez. Arias and Esparza weren’t on the council then.
Mercifully, Mathews ends his article with a great punchline, however unintended:
Whatever the results of these contests, it seems likely that this wave has changed Fresno forever. Governance and politics, long a place for back-slapping and informal deals, are modernizing as Fresno, and much of California, grow up.
Dude, if you only knew and clearly never will.
#Sabiguel2020 #NoStatusQuoFresno
p.s. Extra Punchline
But they’ve also been frustrated on big issues, particularly environmental cleanup, regulation of industry to mitigate pollution and the control and oversight of Fresno’s police department.
You know, because they work so hard on those things. They’re frustrated.
FULL ARTICLE
Looking for California’s biggest wave? Try Fresno.
By Joe Mathews
As Fresno emerges as the Golden State’s next great city, it’s also experiencing an opening up of its small-town political culture. At this transformation’s heart is the so-called “Brown Wave” — the emergence of local elected officials, who, like half of Fresno’s residents, are Latino.
That’s why Fresno, the state’s geographic center, finds itself at its political center as well. The most important race in California’s March 3 elections probably won’t end up being the Democratic presidential primary. Instead, Fresno’s mayoral contest offers a referendum on the “Brown Wave” and of similar power shifts in California communities where white people traditionally held power and brown people did the hardest work.
The media adopted the inelegant term “Brown Wave” after Fresno’s 2018 municipal elections, which unexpectedly produced a four-member Latino majority on the seven-member city council. Those four politicians — Esmeralda Soria, Luis Chavez, Miguel Arias and Nelson Esparza — represented a departure, and not just because of ethnicity. They are relatively young, well-educated professionals with more progressive and technocratic instincts than the pragmatic Republicans who have long governed Fresno. They also share a more urban perspective on Fresno, arguing that the city has neglected its older neighborhoods, which often lack parks and other services.
Online and on talk radio, the council members have faced derision or nicknames (“The Cartel” or “The Squad”) grounded in bigotry about their ethnicity. But the council majority has ignored such insults and pursued a pragmatic and ambitious agenda.
They already claim some successes. The council has put more money into parks, sidewalks and tree trimming and sought changes in road funding to put more dollars into neighborhoods with older streets (you can already see some results on once-potholed streets near Chinatown). The council voted to relocate a rendering plant away from southwest Fresno neighborhoods, capped alcohol licenses to stop the saturation of liquor stores in lower-income neighborhoods and imposed new regulations on motels, both to improve short-term housing and combat human trafficking.
In a move that’s relatively rare among local governments, they’ve made housing a priority, establishing a new housing trust fund. On homelessness, the new council has shifted away from the city’s traditional approach of pushing people out via anti-encampment laws by offering more services (through an agreement with the county) and establishing a better process for transitioning people to permanent housing.
The council’s shift on economic development has been even more profound. It approved an airport expansion, with an international terminal, and has embraced so-called project labor agreements, which were once banned in Fresno but are favored by unions to make sure that the benefits of big construction projects flow to workers. The “Brown Wave” politicians, who have been deeply critical of the incentives given to build an Amazon distribution center have pushed the principle that any benefit or exemption given to a large company should also be available to local small businesses.
But they’ve also been frustrated on big issues, particularly environmental cleanup, regulation of industry to mitigate pollution and the control and oversight of Fresno’s police department.
This makes this year’s mayoral election a highly consequential one. With incumbent Lee Brand leaving office, the powerful former police chief Jerry Dyer is running as the establishment candidate, and as a brake on the “Brown Wave” council members, with whom he has tangled. He has dominated the public conversation about the race in part because of a controversial past, which includes a mysterious death in front of his home and a police department second-in-command who turned out to be a drug kingpin.
Most council members are aligned with the other candidate, prosecutor Andrew Janz, best known for coming close to knocking off Congressman Devin Nunes in 2018. Already, the election has been hotly contested, and it could go on for many more months. If neither Janz nor Dyer wins a majority on March 3, there would be a run-off election in November, raising the prospect of a nasty campaign that consumes the year.
And it’s not the only race in which the power of the “Brown Wave” will be tested. Councilmember Soria has launched a progressive challenge against her fellow Democrat, Congressman Jim Costa, a moderate fixture of Fresno politics.
Whatever the results of these contests, it seems likely that this wave has changed Fresno forever. Governance and politics, long a place for back-slapping and informal deals, are modernizing as Fresno, and much of California, grow up.
Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.
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