Oct. 18, Newsletter from the Fresno County Dems

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Newsletter: October 18, 2021
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** In This Newsletter:
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Redistricting Is Vital: Act Now! (#Redistricting)

Midterm Battle Has Already Begun (#Midterms)

Clovis Democratic Club Picnic (#Clovis-Dems)

Hurtado Recall Fails to Start (#Jewel)

Help a Local Food Bank (#Food-Bank)

Forkner School Renamed for H. Roger Tartarian (#Tatarian)

Clean Shared Mobility Network Community Meetings (#Mobility-Net)

California’s Housing Needs (#Housing)

Democratic Party Website and HQ (#Dem-HQ)
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This is a proposed map for new supervisor boundaries in Fresno County based on the 2020 Census. This Equity Coalition Map is the result of a collaborative effort that included community input from groups such as the Dolores Huerta Foundation, SEIU 521, the Central California Coalition for Equitable Realignment, among many others. The map adheres to the California Fair Maps Act and the federal Voting Rights Act to ensure fair and equitable representation. View the full map here ([link removed]) .

It’s long overdue for the Fresno County Board of Supervisors to reflect the diversity of our county, and you can help make that happen. Get involved as Fresno County draws new lines for supervisor districts. Join the weekly Equity Coalition for Fresno County meeting Mondays at 6 p.m. via Zoom.

An Advisory Redistricting Commission hearing will be held on Oct. 21 at 6 p.m. to finalize map recommendations for Fresno County Board of Supervisors at the Fresno County Health & Wellness Center, 1925 E. Dakota Ave.Call Pam Whalen 559-994-9390 (tel:559-994-9390 ) to coordinate your attendance and comments.

To view livestream on Zoom webinar: [link removed]

For English enter Webinar ID: 915 0823 3781

For Spanish enter Webinar ID: 972 9616 6702

To listen by telephone, dial 669-900-6833 (tel:669-900-6833) or 408-638-0968 (tel:408-638-0968)

Fresno County Redistricting Timeline
* Nov. 2, 1 p.m.: Board of Supervisors Public Hearing, Fresno County Hall of Records. Consider draft map recommendations, provide direction to staff.
* Nov. 16, 1 p.m.: Board of Supervisors Public Hearing, Fresno County Hall of Records. Select final map and election sequence.
* Dec. 14, 1 p.m.: Board of Supervisors Hearing, Fresno County Hall of Records. Redistricting ordinance—second reading.
* Dec. 15: Redistricting Plan must be finalized by the Fresno County Board of Supervisors.

Scan or click the QR code below with your phone or device to be directed to an online petition in support of the Equity Coalition Map (or visit: [link removed]).
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The Republican Party is raising millions of dollars with the firm expectation they will be able to take control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives in 2022. In a chilling trend, many of these efforts tout support for the Jan. 6 failed putsch as an essential conservative credential. Far from any sense of shame or crisis within their ranks, the Republican Party is optimistic about their chances.

The National Republican Congressional Committee sent out mass texts calling all the recipients traitors, saying that all those registered Republicans had one final chance to stand with Trump or be branded deserters. The lies about the 2020 election have become a rallying cry, and in the post-truth conservative movement that cry is very dangerous.

Democrats must come together now to beat back this challenge. Volunteer now by contacting 559-495-0606 (tel:559-495-0606) or [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]?subject=Re%3A%20Volunteer%20Midterms) .

Our health and our country’s commitment to democracy will not fare well if that comes to pass. We need to stand together or I fear we will continue to fall.

Join the Clovis Democratic Club at the Clovis Veterans Memorial district for an opportunity to socialize with fellow Democrats, enjoy a BBQ tri-tip (or vegetarian) dinner, support the club and get ready for an exciting 2022! For tickets click the picnic flyer or visit: [link removed].

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Democrats across the Central Valley can celebrate the failure of the recall effort against Kingsburg City Council Member Jewel Hurtado. The conservative activists who sought to recall Hurtado needed 354 signatures from registered local voters, but though they announced they had met that mark, the official examination ([link removed]) determined the recall effort had padded their petition with more than 100 invalid signatures.

After already having suffered the annoyance of a statewide recall that overwhelmingly failed against Governor Newsom, this announcement must be a great relief for the people of Kingsburg. The $90,000 cost of a special election would have been a particularly hard hit to the city’s budget.

The movement to recall Hurtado surfaced after she proposed that the Kingsburg City Council recognize Pride Month and show support for the LGBTQ+ residents of their city. Unfortunately, a majority of the City Council rejected Hurtado’s good-hearted request, and a vocal minority of local conservatives immediately began pushing for her ouster. However, the results have proved just how few there actually were.

The failure of the recall movement to secure enough signatures to even begin a recall procedure shows that just as there was a majority of voters galvanized to place Hurtado in office, that same majority wishes to keep her. If this low bar for a recall is enough for her conservative opponents to stumble over, Hurtado can look forward to her reelection campaign with a new measure of reassurance.

Text “food” to 202-858-0303 (tel:202-858-0303) for a list of food banks in your area In Fresno County or call 559-237-3663 (tel:559-237-3663) .

The Fresno County Democratic Party applauds the Fresno Unified School District’s decision to rename the former Forkner Elementary School to H. Roger Tatarian Elementary School.

Roger Tatarian’s decades of work for the public good with Fresno State and the Fresno Bee warrant this recognition. As the executive director of Fresno State’s Institute for Media and Public Trust and executive editor of the Bee following his tenure as editor-in-chief of United Press International, he demonstrated an admirable commitment to our city by returning to his hometown to enrich our community.

It is also welcome that Tatarian is the first Armenian name to grace one of our local schools, and his story as a child of immigrants raised and educated in Fresno can be an aspirational example for the many students of Fresno Unified who are also part of the immigrant experience.

The name Tatarian is replacing also represents Fresno but instead harkens to our darker past that we still strive to overcome. The original J.C. Forkner was a wealthy property developer whose company implemented strict racial covenants to prevent anyone perceived as a lesser ethnicity from living in the Fig Garden area.

Indeed, Tatarian’s family would have been banned, as the documents explicitly refused sale to “Asiatics, Mongolians, Hindus, Negroes, Armenians or any natives or descendants of the Turkish empire.” In this racial exclusion, Forkner represented the kind of endemic racism that has shaped our country but now must be overcome.

Renaming Forkner Elementary to honor Tatarian is a small step in a good direction. Combating racism does not only mean that we should prevent new offenses, but it also necessitates identifying and, where possible, taking steps to rectify old harms. There might be some people who disapprove of changing the name of Forkner Elementary out of a sense of nostalgia or a hesitancy toward any change, but no good can come of keeping Forkner’s name on the school.
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Every third Tuesday, the network meets to discuss improving electric vehicle charging access and other transportation improvements and solutions needed to help cut our region’s contribution to damaging the atmosphere while making people’s lives easier.

All meetings are 5:30 p.m.–7 p.m. Agendas will be provided prior to the meetings. Upcoming meeting dates: Oct. 19, Nov. 16 and Dec. 21.

Meetings will be held virtually until CDC-compliant in-person meetings can be held.

For any question, e-mail [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .

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The Clean Shared Mobility Network is supported by the California Strategic Growth Council’s Transformative Climate Communities program with funds from California Climate Investments—cap-and-trade dollars at work.

California needs more housing. Two of our lead crises are homelessness and an unaffordable property market stifling working-class growth. Both of these could be solved by a sharp increase in the housing stock. Our cities and towns need to be redesigned away from the gasoline and auto disasters of design we have spent the past 80 years constructing, and the private market cannot coordinate such a wholesale reinvention. This means the government needs to take the wheel, and publicly financed housing projects need to be on the menu.

Our ongoing climate disaster cannot be solved if we continue the American model of constant spread and sprawl. We need to retract from areas made more fragile by warming and strengthen centralized systems of mass transit and services benefiting from efficiencies of scale.

The era of lawns, picket fences and 2.5 cars in every driveway had its century, but that vision of the American dream has been quietly murdering us. It is time we ended it as surely as the era of coal-fired urban industry departed from the smoggy soot-stained streets of London-town.

Our cities are healthiest when there is a mixture of social classes and economic activity. To avoid the mistakes of previous housing projects, we need to adapt to their lessons, rather than abandoning the entire concept. To avoid islands of poverty, we could try placing fancy penthouses on top of low-income apartment buildings. We now know that isolating housing from retail locations can increase societal decohesion, so we need to include in our development plans commercial spaces in a wide variety of sizes below and among our new construction.

Rents in Fresno have shot up by 20% in the last year. The Fresno City Council has done some good work, with millions invested in the new construction at McKinley and Blackstone avenues. The ongoing evaluation of a plan to build a mixed-use housing and retail complex downtown near Chukchansi Park is also promising.

However, there needs to be a larger coordination of state and federal resources. Reducing housing costs will unlock a groundsurge of economic activity that will help every facet of our country.

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News and events will alway arise faster than this newsletter can come out. That is why the Fresno County Democratic Party website is the best place to get regular updates on upcoming events in the area, as well as information on ways to get involved. There is also information on scheduled meetings from the many Democratic clubs in Fresno County, so you can find one that most suits you and your interests.

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The Democratic Party HQ (1033 U St ([link removed]) .) is open 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Monday–Friday. Call 559-495-0606 (tel:559-495-0606) or e-mail [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]?subject=Re%3A%20Newsletter-10-18-21%20) for information or to volunteer.

Support your local Democratic Party by donation viaActBlue ([link removed]) or by mailing a check to Fresno County Democratic Party, P.O. Box 5795, Fresno, CA 93755.


Our newsletter is prepared by Francis Horan.

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