What’s really behind Fresno’s big ArtHop shift? It involves police staffing | Opinion
Does the Fresno Police Department work for the people of Fresno?
Or are the people of Fresno, elected leaders included, handcuffed by the police and its union?
In the curious case of ArtHop, that chain-of-command isn’t clear.
Over the past decade or so, ArtHop has transformed from a few dozen relatively small and staid gatherings held in art galleries on the first Thursday of every month to downtown’s largest recurring party. The art gallery aspect continues, only now it’s accompanied by a boisterous street fair that draws crowds of 15,000.
That change happened organically and went mostly unregulated. No one was “in charge” of organizing the ArtHop street fair. And aside from a select few, the vendors that set up along Fulton Street, some as early as 8 in the morning, were unpermitted.
The city is now putting down its foot. In the days leading to Thursday’s ArtHop where outdoor vendors were prohibited, city officials including Mayor Jerry Dyer and Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias met with business owners and stakeholders to sell them their plan to spin off the street fair aspect of ArtHop into a separate Wednesday evening event.
The change would take effect in September, though which Wednesday has not been determined.
“One Wednesday a month with the ability to grow to four Wednesdays a month,” Arias told a mostly displeased gathering at City Hall.
The yet-to-be-named event would include street closures on Fulton between Fresno and Mono streets — something ArtHop doesn’t currently do. The city would make sure there’s a police presence, roll out mobile restrooms and provide trash service. All at no cost to the public, or vendors.
But why Wednesday, which for obvious reasons is less than ideal?
Because that’s the only day of the week when the city has enough police officers on duty to maintain a sufficient presence during large downtown events without having to pay overtime or pull cops from other districts.
That disclosure, made by Dyer and Arias, resulted in a room full of incredulous vendors and ArtHop devotees.
As well they should be.
“I think it’s going to set downtown back 10, 15 years,” Fresno Street Eats president Mike Osegueda said of the planned shift to Wednesday.
Mayor blames labor contract
When asked by attendees why a few extra police couldn’t simply be shifted to Thursday, Dyer and Arias responded it wasn’t that simple. Fresno’s surplus of officers assigned to work Wednesdays — sometimes more than 50 of them, former chief Paco Balderrama told the city council in June — is a longstanding scheduling practice established by the city’s labor contract with the police union.
(Dyer and Arias didn’t let this part slip during the meeting, but the existing agreement recently expired and a new one is currently being negotiated.)
So let me get this straight. Fresno, whose downtown was deserted for decades, finally has something that lures 15,000 people on a monthly basis. An event whose “first Thursday” regularity is ingrained not just locally but throughout the region.
And now you want to tell more than 90% of those folks to come on Wednesday instead — a decidedly non-party day — because an extra patrol or two can’t be reassigned without incurring excessive costs?
I’m sorry, but that’s preposterous. A city of 545,000 that spends half its general fund on the police department — unheard of in California — and boasts 926 sworn officer positions (roughly 860 filled) cannot use a lack of on-duty cops as an excuse to kill downtown’s biggest party.
City Hall and the police union should be embarrassed this is even an issue.
Brandon Wiemiller, president of the Fresno Police Officers Association, responded by email that “regardless of scheduling” the chief has “full discretion” to provide police services for events “that are assigned high priority by the City.”
Regardless of what side is to blame here, this is yet another instance where Fresno can’t get out of its own way. Even while on the path to something better.
“We’ve spent 15 years trying to get people to come downtown. Then when they come downtown we should move heaven and earth to keep them downtown,” Osegueda said. “I feel like there were other solutions that could’ve been exhausted before we got here.”
Ya think?
Thursday’s ArtHop quiet, mostly
Lacking outdoor vendors, save for a select few who either didn’t know about the new regulations or turned out to denounce them, Thursday’s ArtHop was relatively dead.
City code enforcement officers issued warnings and removed at least one canopy set up on Fulton but allowed a protest organized by ReHop Fresno (that included two artists selling paintings on tables and hanging from a building) to continue.
Crystal Rocha said she was protesting for fellow artists “pushed out” by the new rules and “for the rights of people to set up and sell wares.”
“Five years ago when I moved here everybody knew about ‘first Thursday’ and they talked about how everyone knew about it,” said James Rodriguez, Rocha’s partner and fellow protester.
“Moving it to Wednesday is ripping the heart out of something instead of doing precise surgery.”
City Hall and the police union need to figure this out. The thousands of ArtHop devotees deserve a better plan than what’s currently on offer.
Downtown’s biggest reoccurring party can only be held on Wednesday night due to a lack of on-duty police? That’s completely laughable.
In Fresno, of all places, a lack of police resources does not get to be used as an excuse.
