Update: Fresno awards contract for new Cesar Chavez Boulevard signs, despite lawsuit
Fresno City Council members voted Thursday to move forward with a contract to start replacing street signs along a 10-mile stretch of major roads across south Fresno to reflect a name change to Cesar Chavez Boulevard.
The 5-1 vote came despite pleas from opponents to hold off on spending money on the project until their lawsuit over the new street name can be decided in court. A coalition of business owners and residents along Kings Canyon Road, Ventura Street and California Avenue is asking a judge to block the city from removing or replacing street signs along the route. The opposition coalition, 1 Community Compact, filed a motion Wednesday for a preliminary injunction against the city.
Councilmember Garry Bredefeld voted Thursday against awarding a $142,000 contract to Kroeker Inc. to change more than 200 street signs renaming Kings Canyon Road, Ventura Street and California Avenue between Marks Avenue to the west and Peach Avenue to the east across south Fresno.
The name change to honor the late farm-labor leader was approved by the City Council in March 2023 on a 6-1 vote — a move that fueled an intense debate between supporters and opponents of the change and later sparked a lawsuit, still pending against the city, by the 1 Community Compact coalition.
A court hearing on the coalition’s motion for an injunction is scheduled for March 12 before Fresno County Superior Court Judge Jonathan Skiles.
According to a staff report to the Fresno City Council by the city’s public works and capital projects departments, Kroeker Inc. submitted the lower of two bids for the sign-replacement project. The $142,287 contract calls for removing existing street name signs along California Avenue, Ventura Street and Kings Canyon Road within the Fresno city limits. In their place, new street name signs would be installed.
A short portion of California Avenue between Hughes and West avenues, which falls outside the Fresno city limits in Fresno County’s jurisdiction, would remain unchanged. The Fresno County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in April 2023 to oppose the city’s action and reject the name change within the county’s jurisdiction.
The staff report to the city council notes that a total of 222 street signs would be changed, not only providing new signs for Cesar Chavez Boulevard but also replacing older signs for side streets along the route. Kroeker will still have to seek city approval for the signs and then obtain the materials to produce the signs — a process anticipated to take weeks before the actual sign replacement could begin.
In a statement Wednesday, the 1 Community Compact group described the potential award of a sign-change contract a “clear dereliction of duty and due process” by the city.
The motion for injunction prepared by the coalition’s attorney, Brian Leighton of Clovis, asks Skiles to block the city or any of its contractors “from removing or replacing any street signs on East and West California Avenue, Ventura Avenue and Kings Canyon Road in the city of Fresno and expending any money fabricating new signage” until the court rules on the pending lawsuit. The case is not scheduled to go to trial until March 2025.
Thursday’s vote to award the contract came after about eight speakers addressed the council to oppose not only the contract, but to the original decision to rename the streets.
“I would like to encourage you … to not move forward with the contract to develop signs for the renaming of California, Ventura and Kings Canyon avenues,” said Pastor B.T. Lewis of West Fresno’s Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church. “We have failed as a city to engage our communities adequately in listening to their voices. We have violated the public trust of our community.”
“We should have considered more alternatives like P Street that runs in front of City Hall … and the Cesar Chavez Adult School,” Lewis added. “There was no consideration given to the importance of existing street names.”
Sarah Pilibos, landlord of a shopping center along Kings Canyon Road, told the council that “it would be prudent on the council’s part to withhold the distribution and the allocation of funds … for the purchase of signs and the investment into a construction contract with Kroeker.”
Bredefeld offered a motion to postpone the contract award, but it failed to get the backing of any other councilmembers.
When the City Council approved the name change almost 11 months ago, the proposal was championed by the three councilmembers whose districts include portions of the streets: Miguel Arias in southwest Fresno and Luis Chavez and Nelson Esparza in southeast Fresno. They were joined by Councilmembers Tyler Maxwell, Mike Karbassi and Annalisa Perea in voting for the change. Only Bredefeld, from northeast Fresno, voted against the change.
Notably, Arias and Chavez are among candidates running in the March 5, 2024, primary election for the Fresno County Board of Supervisors, challenging incumbent Supervisor Sal Quintero in the county’s District 3, which includes much of southeast and southwest Fresno. Quintero voted along with his fellow supervisors to reject the name change in the county’s jurisdiction.
This story was originally published January 31, 2024 at 5:43 PM.
