Councilmember pledges $20,000 against Dyer in Fresno mayor race
Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias said Wednesday he will donate $20,000 to the effort to keep former Police Chief Jerry Dyer out of the mayor’s office.
Arias said he’ll give the money he earned from campaigning to the political action committee “Rising Together, No on Dyer for Mayor 2020.” He held a news conference with Councilmembers Esmeralda Soria and Nelson Esparza on Wednesday to make the announcement public.
That same campaign garnered about $100,000 in December from former state Assemblymember Juan Arambula and his wife Amy, a one-time employee of the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office.
Standing at an auto repair shop on G Street and California Avenue, Arias said Dyer’s campaign promise to build huge temporary shelters for the homeless in that area is a bad idea and “un-Christian.”
Dyer speaks about the plan in a campaign ad but he does not say where the shelters, or what he calls “navigation centers,” would be located. Arias said Dyer’s plan is to put those shelters with hundreds of beds near the Fresno Rescue Mission, concentrating the issue in District 3.
“What Jerry Dyer lacks in his primitive proposal to house hundreds of people in mega-tent cities is the immediate and negative impact it has on the neighborhoods,” Arias said. “That concentration of homeless in any neighborhood makes it unsafe.”
“It’s financially unfeasible, it is proven to be ineffective (and) it continues to treat south Fresno as a dumping ground for every social ill,” he said.
Arias pointed to an effort using huge tents in San Diego, saying that model has lower success rates than smaller shelters.
The city of Fresno and Fresno County are currently working on homeless efforts through the Fresno-Madera Continuum of Care. Arias said Dyer’s plan would fly against the current agreement, which calls for shelters of no more than 50 beds.
Those smaller shelters, often called triage shelters, come with on-site mental health and drug addiction counseling and other services. Triage advocates say the smaller populations are more manageable and provide a better chance for success.
Jerry Dyer’s plans
Dyer held his own new conference later Wednesday to address his plans around homelessness. “I believe the conference held today by certain councilmembers had less to do with the homeless population than it does politics,” he said. “Certain individuals (are) trying to keep me from becoming the mayor of this city, and that’s unfortunate.”
Dyer officially retired as police chief in October and is running for mayor against Fresno County prosecutor Andrew Janz. Likely long shots also appearing on the ballot are Nickolas Wildstar, Brian Jefferson, Floyd Harris Jr., Johnny Nelum, Bill Gates and Richard Renteria.
The Fresno City Council is looking at a proposal for the Feb. 13 meeting that would continue to use shelters of no more than 50 beds, as well as continuing the plan for funding for the next five years.
This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 11:27 AM.
