Fresno mayor and City Council need to put a bigger emphasis on economic development
Mayor Jerry Dyer has a clear vision for Fresno’s future. He spells it out in his latest budget proposal:
“An inclusive, prosperous, beautiful city where residents and businesses take pride in their neighborhood and their community.”
His 2022-23 budget certainly emphasizes things that residents will notice: Continuing efforts to shelter homeless people; cleaning up litter and removing graffiti in beautification efforts, and improving parks. Another major focus is public safety with the hiring of more police and firefighters.
But not included in the press-release highlights of Dyer’s $1.7 billion budget is something that deals with the “prosperous” part of his spending plan — economic development.
Why is economic development important? Simply put, if Fresno is ever to become stronger as a city, its wages must improve. For that to happen, the mix of businesses must change, and that requires concerted effort to bring good-paying companies to town and spreading the wealth around via local hiring. That is the job of an economic development team.
Economic plans
As I read through the budget, I noticed a $2 million drop in appropriations from 2022 to 2023 for economic development. That did not make sense to me, given that Fresno has long been one of the poorest large cities in the state.
So I emailed City Manager Georgeanne White to explain. She said that $1.8 million of that decline is an accounting measure — grant money that was budgeted in 2022 for the city to pass to the developer of an 88-unit commerical-residential project called The Link at Blackstone and McKinley avenues. In addition, some $300,000 in federal money the city received in 2022 will not be coming in 2023, she added.
White then pointed me to various parts of the budget that center on economic development. Chief among them is the hiring of three planning and development “concierge specialists.” They would act as project administrators for developers with housing or commercial plans, or those who want to develop downtown. The purpose of these specialists is to shepherd projects through city planning as quickly as possible so businesses can get up and running with new employees, who then earn wages.
The city is also preparing an economic development plan, White said. Its purpose: “To attract, retain and grow business, talent and venture capital investors to Fresno, as well as identify shovel-ready parcels that are prime for development and business,” she said in an email.
Efforts are now underway to recruit a new economic development director, White added. “We will look for input from him/her as to how to best accomplish the goals for the department.
“With a record low unemployment rate for the city of 3.8%, we will need to work with our partners to see how best to focus our efforts on our hard-to-employ residents as well,” she said.
Skepticism and challenges
Councilmember Miguel Arias, who represents south and west Fresno, the downtown and part of the Tower district, is skeptical of Dyer’s proposals. To date, the mayor has not shown a cohesive strategy for economic development, Arias said.
“The council put him on notice last year if we did not see better outcomes, we would eliminate the (economic development) department and re-purpose that money to housing because that is the crisis before us,” he said.
The best partner for landing new business, he said, is the Fresno County Economic Development Corp. The public-private nonprofit is “leading the charge.”
One note: Fresno has had three economic development directors since 2009. That’s not a great record of consistency.
Fresno has one of the nation’s most acute rental crises because workers in industries like retail, service and agriculture have paychecks that have not kept up with the fast-rising price of housing.
An analysis by two Fresnoland reporters earlier this year found about 60% of Fresno renters are considered “cost burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent. That rate must come down if the quality of life in Fresno is to improve.
The cliche says a rising tide lifts all boats. Cleaning parks, spraying over graffiti and even putting more police on patrol are certainly worthy endeavors that must be done.
But how to get better paychecks into every home in the city — a chicken in every pot, to use another cliche — is the real challenge before Dyer and the City Council as budget hearings get under way next week.
