‘Enormously frustrating.’ Fresno mayor’s team caught off guard by housing emergency debate
Three Fresno City Councilmembers apparently took Mayor Jerry Dyer’s administration by surprise when they sparked a policy conversation about homelessness without any formal proposals.
Councilmembers Miguel Arias, Luis Chavez and Annalisa Perea sponsored an agenda item for the Thursday Fresno City Council meeting that suggested the council may consider declaring an emergency around homelessness and affordable housing. The agenda item did not include any proposed resolutions, ordinances or other policies.
City Manager Georgeanne White from the dais sought clarity both for her team and the public, saying the item caused her team to scramble at 8 p.m. It was “enormously frustrating,” she said, to learn about the ideas from The Bee’s story.
The policy ideas, which the councilmembers described in phone interviews with The Bee on Wednesday, included converting the Fresno Convention Center to a homeless shelter, streamlining the permitting process for affordable housing and making it easier to add units onto single-family homes.
“I had visions of the Superdome following (Hurricane) Katrina. Trying to drop something on us … that we don’t have any experience doing kind of makes me shudder. As you can tell, my mind is racing because all of this, in less than 24 hours, I’ve been exposed to,” White said. “It would have been great to have a little bit more of a heads up because like I said, everything I heard today has been very productive. I think it’s very worthy of discussion that I know the mayor would want to be a part of as we decide what’s what’s, what we can do and what we can’t do.”
Chavez clarified that the agenda item was only meant to spark discussion, not for a policy vote, and that the council wants to work collaboratively with the mayor’s administration.
Arias expressed his frustration that the homeless population continues to be concentrated in his district and said that’s why he wants to consider converting the convention center into a shelter. He requested a memo from the city attorney’s office on how the council can cancel contracts, such as the one operating the convention center, and how the council could move forward with such a plan.
Both Councilmembers Garry Bredefeld and Mike Karbassi expressed hesitation about using the convention center for a shelter.
Dyer spoke at the end of the discussion, highlighting the work his administration has done around homelessness. He agreed with White saying he appreciated the discussion, but he didn’t like how the councilmembers went about having it.
“I do want to say that this is a shared responsibility. It’s not a mayor’s responsibility or the administration or even the council. It’s all of ours. It’s the community’s, it’s the federal government. It’s a state government,” Dyer said. “So hopefully as we move forward, we can approach it from that that manner.”
This story was originally published January 5, 2023 at 7:12 PM.