It is a busy day at Fresno City Hall as council members debate and vote on four proposed measures that could appear before voters this November.<\/p>\n
The measures cover a range of issues, including extending city leadership term limits, changing the redistricting process, addressing future transportation funding, and setting guardrails for the Southeast Development Area Plan, known as SEDA.<\/p>\n
Each measure comes with an estimated price tag of about $150,000 to place before voters.<\/p>\n
FOX26 asked Councilmembers whether they believe the cost is worth it. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt depends on which measure,” said Councilmember Mike Karbassi. <\/p>\n
We asked Councilmember Annalisa Perea during the discussion, what if all four did? <\/p>\n
“My personal opinion is… that is a very pricey price to pay,” she said. <\/p>\n
Karbassi defended spending the money on proposals he believes could benefit the city, including the proposed Measure C sales tax measure tied to future city funding needs.<\/p>\n
He says spending $150,000 could be a worthwhile investment if the measure generates significant revenue.<\/p>\n
Spending $150,000 on a measure that will bring in $50 million or more to the city, that I say would be a good investment.<\/p>\n
Karbassi also pointed to concerns over the future expiration of Measure C, the countywide transportation tax, warning the city could face difficult decisions without a new funding source.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cIf you think potholes are bad now, when we lose $50 million next year without any funding source to backfill that, there are going to be cuts, and the public is going to feel that.\u201d<\/p>\n
But not everyone on the council agreed the cost was worth it.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Brandon Vang questioned whether taxpayer dollars should instead go toward immediate infrastructure needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether it\u2019s $150,000, $450,000 or $600,000, I\u2019d rather put it on infrastructure that goes to fix a sidewalk or a street and many of my people in District 5 have been waiting for that for decades,” he pointed out. <\/p>\n
Councilmember Annalisa Perea raised similar concerns, saying the city has other needs that could benefit from the funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would much rather see that money spent fixing sidewalks or trimming city trees.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some community members also spoke out against the cost, arguing the money could be used for projects closer to residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat could actually go towards installing a play mat in our district. That could go towards fixing the roads, sidewalks in our district.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karbassi pushed back, saying the larger concern is what could happen if the city loses future revenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cSure, you can fix one section of sidewalk or one section of road for $150,000, but if we don\u2019t pass it, there\u2019s going to be a lot of roads that get zero,” he said. <\/p>\n
In FOX26’s accountability question, we asked councilmembers about where the money would come from to fund these measures. <\/p>\n
\u201cI know one of the authors has committed to finding the money. But at this point, my understanding is there is no dedicated funding source,” Perea said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat will come from the general fund, which is exactly the funds that we are looking to shore up from the measures,” Karbassi said. <\/p>\n
The timeline also became part of the discussion.<\/p>\n
Perea said some of the measures were introduced just days before the vote, with council members receiving the full information on Monday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is a busy day at Fresno City Hall as council members debate and vote on four proposed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-418749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}