Fresno’s Granite Park fight is politically charged. Here’s who really loses out in this mess

The politically charged rhetoric was flying fast and loose.

A “stench,” an “embarrassment” and a “disaster.” Those were some of the descriptions leveled against Fresno’s Granite Park and a proposed agreement for the city to take over the sports facility near Ashlan Avenue and Highway 168. In response, the foundation running the park said charges of wrongdoing were “without one shred of evidence.” Allegations to the contrary “defame the officials and community members who are actively working to improve our city,” the foundation said.

Lost in the chatter was a sad fact: The citizens living near Granite Park will have to wait perhaps as long as another year before the Fresno City Council can once again work out an agreement that would create new public parkland at the facility. Given that there is a dearth of parks in the east-central part of Fresno, that is a significant loss.

History of problems

There’s a ton of history backing up the latest brouhaha.

When Granite Park was constructed in the early 2000s as a regional sports facility, the city co-signed a $5 million loan to help the developer, who then went bankrupt. The city got stuck with the property.

In 2015 the city reached an agreement with developers Terance Frazier and TJ Cox to take over Granite Park. They promised to invest $2.7 million to renovate three dilapidated ballfields and build a restaurant, basketball and volleyball courts, jogging trails and other amenities to end years of blight at the 20-acre park. The city said it would pay $150,000 a year to help with staffing and maintenance.

But in 2018 Frazier asked the city to contribute another $150,000 a year, despite his not constructing the restaurant and other amenities as promised. He said operating the park was a money-loser and that utilities were expensive. The city ordered an audit of the Central Valley Community Sports Foundation, the operator of Granite Park.

The audit found problems like personal loans, missing documents, spending that appeared “not ethical” and unaccounted-for money. In 2019 the District Attorney’s Office announced it was going to review the audit.

Against this backdrop, baseball and softball resumed at renovated fields at Granite Park, and the foundation today says the park gets 500,000 visitors a year. At that level, it sees more visitors than Chukchansi Park downtown.

Agreement for access

Fast forward to the week of June 21: the council was finalizing the next city budget. Included was a new agreement for Granite Park hammered out by several city leaders — including Councilmember Tyler Maxwell, whose District 4 includes Granite Park.

The agreement had significant changes from the prior one. For one thing, the city would take ownership of the park and be in charge of maintenance and landscaping. The city would pay all utilities. And the city would pay off a $1.3 million construction loan the foundation had taken out.

In return, Fresno residents would get greater use of the park. Part of a field on the south side could be used by anyone for recreation during daytime hours. The public would have access to soccer and multi-use fields Mondays through Fridays from dawn to dusk. Baseball and softball diamonds would become available for city-sponsored activities whenever they were not being used.

The foundation was to provide sports and recreational programming to benefit city residents, such as baseball and softball leagues, clinics and tournaments.

Maxwell said that when he campaigned for City Council, District 4 residents repeatedly complained about not having enough parks — and especially how they could not use Granite Park.

The proposed new agreement “gave unprecedented access for the public,” Maxwell said.

Terms get blasted

But the new terms came under strident criticism from Councilmember Garry Bredefeld. He blasted Frazier’s foundation for not meeting terms of the first agreement, and said the second agreement was a giveaway of taxpayer resources.

“I have never seen such an egregious betrayal of the taxpayers than this deal,” he said. “Never.”

He added that “the stench is disgusting” and cited how Frazier is engaged to Councilmember Esmeralda Soria. (She recuses herself from votes involving Frazier’s projects.)

District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp then dropped a bombshell. In a letter to the council, she announced an investigation by her office’s Public Integrity Unit into allegations that the council members had violated the Brown Act “in dealings involving Granite Park.”

The Brown Act is the state law that requires elected officials to do the public’s business in open session, with certain exemptions.

That brought a sharp response from the foundation. “Unfortunately yesterday, in a purely political move, Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp jammed the spokes of the consideration of this agreement with an out-of-the-blue announcement — and without one shred of evidence,” a news release from the group said.

In turn, Smittcamp fired back. Normally, she remains above the fray. But this time, she was uncharacteristically blunt. She’s attended baseball tournaments at Granite Park, and “The facility I have seen is a disaster,” she wrote, referencing exposed wires, hazardous building materials, trash and dead trees.

Stalemate results

Where does all this stand now?

The council did in fact finalize the budget, but left out the new agreement. Granite Park continues under the earlier terms. “It’s clear what was in place was not working for anybody,” Maxwell said.

He said five votes are needed to appropriate funding outside of the annual budget. But he cannot secure those five votes right now; Bredefeld and Councilmember Mike Karbassi are no votes, and Soria has to abstain. The agreement cannot pass with four votes until the budget cycle next year.

The DA is duty bound to investigate claims of Brown Act violations. Such transgressions are not minor; the public’s business must be done in public, a view the Editorial Board has long held.

But in this instance, the district attorney moved in and out of public debate as it suited her purposes. When the Editorial Board asked to speak with Smittcamp, the answer was she could not discuss anything under investigation, despite her being very public and personal in descriptions of problems at the park.

When The Bee inquired who specifically would head up the Brown Act investigation, the appallingly vague answer was “the Public Integrity Unit.”

And when the Editorial Board sought the results of the earlier investigation into the audit of the foundation, the DA said the investigation was still open. It has already stretched out for several years.

Fresno is known nationally as a big city with poor parks. It routinely ranks near the bottom of lists for both quantity and quality of its parks. Forging a new path for Granite Park would have been a positive step.

Instead, personalities, politics and, yes, a possible Brown Act violation, got in the way. It’s unacceptable.