Publications


Summer 2003 Newsletter

New School Construction Could Catalyze Urban Renaissance In Fresno

Dan WhitehurstIn one of the largest single investments in Fresno's history, residents recently passed a $200 million bond for the construction of new schools. To discuss the effort, NSBN is pleased to reprint this interview with Dan Whitehurst, the former Director of the Maddy institute of Public Affairs at Fresno State University and former Mayor of Fresno; Deborah Nankivell, the Executive Director of the Fresno Business Council; and Barbara Steck, Chief Operating Officer of the Fresno Business Council.


Dan, as a former public official and now the Director of the Maddy Institute, how do you evaluate the opportunities presented by Fresno's adoption of the school bond? What do you see the opportunity being?


Dan: This is the largest single investment in the older parts of Fresno perhaps ever. We have a declining downtown core. And city funding for parks and recreation and social services has declined over the years, too. We've had a lot of investment in the north end of our city-new homes, shopping centers and schools. But not in the south end.

Now, all the new schools planned are targeted for the older parts of the city. This presents an extraordinary opportunity to begin a renaissance of our inner city neighborhoods.


Barbara, you had a forum recently in Fresno called "Mixed-Use Schools and Revitalized Inner Cities." What was the purpose of the forum? What came out of that?


Barbara: We wanted to bring together varying interest groups who could play a part in using schools as centers of community. As Dan mentioned, we passed a $200 million school bond. This was the time to get the stakeholders in one room all at the same time.


Who are the players? Who were the panelists?


Barbara: The panelists included David Dent, the Director of Human Services; Henry Perea, the President of the Fresno City Council; H. Spees, who is the CEO of One By One Leadership, a community group that is working in some of the inner city neighborhoods; Robert Wood, President of CSE Homes; Santiago Wood, who is the Superintendent of Schools; and Dan Fitzpatrick of the Redevelopment Agency.


Deborah, what's your take on this opportunity?


Deborah: The Business Council's primary agenda was economic development. But with all the problems we have in the community, community development has become the focus. This opportunity looks like the best chance we've had to really deal with many agendas all at once and stabilize neighborhoods, help economic development, and help educational outcomes.


Dan, as a former mayor, what's the unique challenge of Fresno? The challenges of building schools as centers of neighborhoods with these bonds is a statewide phenomenon, but what are the peculiar challenges that Fresno has with this opportunity of school, park, library and other bond funds? What are the particular problems you face?


Dan: One of the things people should know is that while the rest of California has had a 5% unemployment rate, Fresno has had a 14% rate. We have a large number of low-income unemployed people in Fresno. Many children do not speak English as their native language. A lot of children are living in poverty. And schools are under-performing, even relative to socioeconomic standards. Fresno arguably is one of the poorest cities in the United States. That makes the challenge of improving our schools and our neighborhoods all the greater.


Barbara, what is the potential for collaboration here?


Barbara: The potential is terrific. In the last few years, our elected officials and public agencies have begun awakening to the idea of people working together for the good of the community. That word, "collaboration," has become part of everybody's vocabulary in the last couple of years. I think we're on track for that.


What are you hearing from the communities? Do the neighborhoods want this? Is this something that's bubbling up from the bottom or coming from the top down, this collaboration idea of schools as centers of neighborhoods?


Dan: Frankly, a lot of people aren't tuned into it right now. A lot of people in our communities aren't aware that they can play this kind of role in planning their schools. There is one neighborhood that has been involved in planning for a new school. But candidly, there are many parts of the community that aren't even aware that they could possibly play this kind of role, but would be very excited about it if they knew.


Deborah, the state has a significant role to play in Fresno's future, both with schools and other services. What's the relationship between the state's processes and your ability to be the architects of your future here in Fresno through programs such as these?


Deborah: We learned a long time ago that Fresno concentrates the unintended consequences of policies at state and federal levels. Now, as we become more and more visible on the radar, people are recognizing that customized programming is appropriate for the Valley because the differences are so obvious. We're hopeful that the state will give us more and more leeway as well as additional resources when necessary to solve the major long-term problems.


But the shortfall on revenues must have impacted the planning capacity of the public agencies, whether they be the city, schools or redevelopment agency. What resources do you need to do this kind of collaborative planning?


Barbara:
You are right that they have depleted the resources! In the last 10-12 years we have seen a real loss of professional planners in public agencies. We need people with the skills to pull this together and do the work that needs to be done in their communities.


Who would be the kind of partners, stakeholders in this kind of collaborative planning effort for these new schools?


Dan: The people in the immediate neighborhoods are the primary stakeholders. But we need to pull to the table the city and its agencies (the redevelopment agency, parks, planning, police, public works, traffic, transit), the county and a number of its agencies (child protective services, social services, health, mental health, library, probation), and a range of community groups (ethnic organizations, faith-based organizations, sports groups, arts groups).

We hope this would involve literally thousands of people.


Barbara, what's the next step? How do you accomplish this? How do you take it from idea to execution?


Barbara: The next step is figuring out exactly what people need, and in what order, and to start moving forward. Obviously we need the funding first. That opens up everybody's minds. The collaborative sentiment in Fresno has grown tremendously. We need a directed leader. Directed leadership seems to work in Fresno. That would suggest we have a facilitator that can just pull people together doing what they really want to do anyway.


And if we came back a year from now, Barbara, what would we hope to see happening?


Barbara: That our first master plan is wrapped up and ready to go after doing all of the work in the communities and that we're ready to break ground.