\t\t\t\t\tWhat’s at stake?<\/p>\n
The Fresno City Council is set to vote Thursday on the Southeast Area Specific Plan, opening up 9,000 acres outside of city limits for housing, commercial, and industrial development that many experts say would reshape the region.<\/p>\n
Fresno Unified, the city’s biggest employer, says the project would repeat a decades-old pattern: suburban expansion that enriches developers while hollowing out existing schools. With a “nuclear option” referendum against SEDA already threatened, the council’s decision this week could trigger the most consequential land-use fight in the city’s history.<\/p>\n
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer\u2019s plan to open up land for nearly 45,000 homes in southeast Fresno, called SEDA, risks 11 school shutdowns and mass layoffs for Fresno Unified in only its first decade of build out, according to estimates from the district\u2019s financial team and the Fresno Teachers\u2019 Association, shared verbally with Fresnoland.<\/p>\n
For the last two weeks, FUSD\u2019s teachers union, FTA, has led the charge pushing the district to forecast the true effects of Dyer\u2019s mega-development on California\u2019s third-largest school district.<\/p>\n
Within a decade of SEDA breaking ground, one high school in Fresno Unified is forecasted to shut down, according to estimates provided by district officials, along with two middle schools and eight elementary schools.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s just the estimated impact from only 20% of SEDA\u2019s full build out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe shocking thing to me is this is happening in broad daylight,\u201d said Fresno Unified\u2019s Deputy Superintendent Ben Drati. \u201cIs anybody looking out for Fresno Unified in this whole county?\u201d<\/p>\n
Within 10 years, the district could lose about $200 million in annual funding that would go towards classroom supplies, teachers, and after-school activities. Teachers and school nurses would likely have to be laid off, said FTA president Manuel Bonilla.<\/p>\n
\u201cFresno Unified will cease to exist the way we know it if SEDA is approved,\u201d Bonilla said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA \u2018yes vote\u2019 by a councilmember for SEDA is a vote against Fresno Unified\u2019s students, educators, schools and communities,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The estimated impacts to FUSD schools from SEDA marks a major shift in the citywide debate on the 9,000-acre plan, which is heavily backed by local real estate developers and faces<\/a> a $3 billion infrastructure funding shortfall, according to a city-commissioned study<\/a>.<\/p>\n The off-the-cuff estimates of SEDA\u2019s impact have fueled a sense of urgency for Fresno Unified to update their official enrollment projections more quickly \u2013 a process the district has begun initiating, Superintendent Misty Her confirmed to Fresnoland.\u00a0<\/p>\n The district\u2019s current enrollment projections already show a loss of nearly 2,000 students by 2030, down to 60,522 students, according to a presentation shared<\/a> at the April 23 Board of Trustees meeting.<\/p>\n Last month, SEDA was given preliminary approval by the city planning commission after Commissioner Linda Calandra, the swing vote, changed her vote<\/a> at the last minute.<\/p>\n SEDA now faces a potential final approval vote by the Fresno City Council at 4:30 pm on Thursday, Dec. 18.<\/p>\n A coalition of labor and community groups said last month they are prepared to launch<\/a> the \u201cnuclear option\u201d against SEDA, should the city council approve the plan: petitioning for a citywide referendum that could stop SEDA from ever being built, regardless of how the city council votes this week.<\/p>\n Now, SEDA\u2019s nuclear-option coalition just gained a new, powerful partner: the Fresno Teachers Association, representing the largest union in the city.<\/p>\n FTA\u2019s Bonilla and Fresno DRIVE leader Artie Padilla organized and hosted separate meetings in early December across Fresno Unified\u2019s campuses to underscore SEDA\u2019s potential impacts to families residing in the city\u2019s southeastern neighborhoods.<\/p>\n The main source of SEDA\u2019s impact on Fresno Unified, Bonilla and the district have found, stems from the city\u2019s lack of population growth<\/a> forecasted by the state\u2019s top demographer at the California Department of Finance.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fresno Planning Director Jennifer Clark has denied these population projections, which are considered the gold standard for planners. Last month, Clark said the state ignores Fresno\u2019s \u201cnatural\u201d rate of population growth. But if the state\u2019s population growth forecast for Fresno is remotely accurate, it could have massive ramifications for the city.<\/p>\n With the state saying new Fresno residents will be in scarce supply, FUSD estimates that most of SEDA\u2019s anticipated growth will be satisfied by a brain drain of roughly 1,000 middle-class students from FUSD every year.<\/p>\n \u201cSEDA will take students away from FUSD, taking resources away from existing students to subsidize Clovis Unified,\u201d Bonilla said.<\/p>\n Such an outcome has precedent, said Drati. It would be a repeat of what happened 40 years ago, when Clovis West High School and later Clovis North High School split many middle-class families in Fresno along Herndon Avenue.<\/p>\n Back then, many FUSD families, if they had enough money for a home upgrade, chose to move north of Herndon, fleeing to Clovis Unified\u2019s new campuses.<\/p>\n This time, Temperance Avenue, where SEDA\u2019s new homes would begin, would essentially become the new Herndon Avenue, Fresno Unified officials say.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat Clovis Unified did to Fresno Unified when they built Clovis West and Clovis North \u2013 that same thing is about to happen in southeast Fresno,\u201d Drati said.<\/p>\n Now, many on FUSD\u2019s side, from FTA\u2019s rank-and-file teachers to ex-superintendent Bob Nelson, are calling on Dyer and the Fresno City Council to abandon SEDA before the damage to FUSD is done.<\/p>\n \u2018When it\u2019s kids and schools, it\u2019s pretty egregious\u2019<\/p>\n To approve SEDA, Clovis Unified\u2019s new $500 million super-campus in Southeast Fresno, called the Terry Bradley Education Center, has been the driving force for the last five years in key conversations with local planners<\/a>, Mayor<\/a> Jerry Dyer and most recently the Fresno Planning Commission<\/a>.<\/p>\n Clovis Unified constructed the school before homes were approved to be built there. Fresno Planning Commissioner Kathy Bray said<\/a> SEDA should be approved, because it would supply CUSD with the necessary new students to fill the fresh classrooms.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be devastating in terms of what the impacts would be,\u201d said Bob Nelson, the previous FUSD Superintendent from 2017-2024. \u201cWhen it\u2019s kids and schools, it\u2019s pretty egregious.\u201d<\/p>\n SEDA is being heavily pushed by prominent local developer Darius Assemi, who owns land worth millions of dollars across the street from CUSD\u2019s Terry Bradley Center, according to county property records.<\/p>\n