Tower Theatre purchase is a major flex for Fresno’s progressive City Council majority
Elections have consequences. That’s true everywhere, but especially in Fresno.
After all we’ve been through the last two years, doesn’t the March 2020 presidential primary seem like a lifetime ago? It does, so here’s a memory refresh: That was the election where Fresno voters chose Jerry Dyer as mayor.
Three Fresno City Council seats were also on that ballot, but only the District 4 race was contested. And boy was it: Despite being heavily out-spent by fellow under-30 millennial Nathan Alonzo, who had Dyer’s backing as well as the backing of most of the political establishment, Tyler Maxwell prevailed by a 4.5% margin.
The ripple effects of that vote were obvious even then. Still, we had to wait 25 months until an actual wave rolled through.
Thursday’s 4-3 council split decision to purchase the Tower Theatre block for $6.5 million — while also covering the legal butts of other parties involved in the deal — represents the new progressive majority’s first major flex.
In any previous incarnation of Fresno, the open wound in the city’s most LGBTQ-friendly neighborhood would’ve been allowed to fester indefinitely. (As if 16 months hasn’t been long enough.) This council majority, after allowing time for certain allegiances to shift and legal skirmishes to clear, took forceful action.
Now, was it a prudent move? Only time, and lawyers, will tell.
Councilmembers Luis Chavez and Mike Karbassi, both of whom voted against the purchase, were right to express their skepticism of Tower Theatre owner Laurence Abbate, the shadowy figure in this whole affair.
“Indemnifying someone who has a track record of misleading during his business dealings is not good policy,” Chavez said at one point during the heated debate.
And yes, the deal does expose city taxpayers to the whims of our legal system. After seemingly being foiled in their attempt to buy the Tower District landmark, Adventure Church’s head pastor and attorney made it perfectly clear they intend to sue the pants off everyone involved.
Chavez and Karbassi are right to be wary of that, too. However, as we saw Thursday, when motions to strike the indemnification clause and subpoena Abbate each failed to garner four votes, the liberal majority had other thoughts.
Times in Fresno are a changin’
That same simple math (4 > 3) was the reason in a previous column I didn’t bother to debate whether the City Council resolution would pass.
I knew it would pass, based on zero inside information, for the simple reason that Councilmembers Esmeralda Soria and Miguel Arias would not bring the matter before the council unless they had assurance in advance they had the four votes they needed.
Lo and behold, they did. Which would almost assuredly not have been the case if Alonzo were in that chair instead of Maxwell, or if Paul Caprioglio still represented the residents of central and east-central Fresno.
This is hardly the first sign that the times in California’s fifth-largest city are a changin’. Last year’s Pride flag raising ceremony at City Hall was an even more visible, and powerful, signal. But if anyone required more tangible proof, the new council majority just provided $6.5 million worth.
Not being an attorney myself, I’m not really qualified to say whether the sales agreement between Abbate and Adventure Church had legally expired or not. This is a crucial point, one that has been and will continue to be debated.
Consequence of 4-3 council vote
However, the city of Fresno employs a phalanx of attorneys who undoubtedly pored over all of the documents, contracts and legal rulings relevant to this brouhaha. While allowing for the unpredictability of our legal system, you have to think City Attorney Doug Sloan & Co. believes the city has an air-tight deal.
Or else Sloan would’ve raised strenuous objections that Soria and Arias would’ve heeded. Right? Residents better hope so.
There have been several 4-3 votes by this council since Maxwell took office in January 2021. Among them were the dismissal of the city clerk and the rejection of a discussion item over legally trying to force Fresno Unified back to in-person learning. (You’ll never guess which council member was behind that bright idea.)
But so far as I can tell, this is only the second 4-3 vote of consequence where Maxwell, Soria, Arias and Nelson Esparza, the current council president, all lined up on one side with Chavez, Karbassi and Garry Bredefeld on the other. The first was a June 2021 decision to approve more retail cannabis licenses.
Considering Fresno still doesn’t have legal pot shops — 3½ years since a previous council gave them the initial OK — that vote won’t be nearly as consequential as what we saw Thursday.
Good consequences or bad, Fresno’s liberal council majority now shoulders them.
