I'm reading a story about a proposed apartment complex on Herndon Avenue in Fresno,
kind of a very way out west on Herndon, And basically the City of
Fresno Planning Commission has shot down this idea for an apartment complex along Herndon Avenue.
This is, by the way, that the idea here is the city
is wanting to fund infill development. So stuff that's in the city when the
city limits that has building, that has stuff built up surrounding vacant lots,
but we want to build up vacant lots. And so this is long Herndon
Avenue. It's just a little bit looks like it's a little bit west of
Marx, between Mars and Valentine. And this idea, it was a proposal
for an apartment complex. And by the way, this is on Herndon Avenue.
This is probably gonna be a higher rent apartment complex. No one's going
to be buying an apartment at Herndon and Marx. Who doesn't have a bit
of money, I would guess, you know, what do I know?
But that does seem to be the trend. The trend seems to be one
of two things. You're either building luxury apartments for high end renters or you're
building state assisted quote lower income housing. There's really not much room in between.
Why, well, there's no other way you're going to make money.
If you build for middle class renters, you can't make money. You're building
for people who are too high income for you to receive any subsidization from the
state, and you're not getting enough money from the renters on the back end
because you're doing this for middle class people and try to have affordable rents.
So basically that those are the only kinds of apartments that are being built nowadays,
is high end stuff that like you know, a single nurse who's making
you know, well into six figures that she can afford, or you know,
a divorced lawyer can rent. Those are the kinds of projects that are
being built right now. And this project doesn't seem like it is going to
be like it's going to be eighty two units, and it doesn't seem like
it's going to be lowering housing. The there's an article about this in gv
wire, noting that there's an article about it in gv wire noting that like
Section eight subsidies are not going to cover the cost of these rents. But
I'm very interested in the mix of people who are lined up to support it
versus oppose it. All right, so supporting it is obviously the real estate
developer who is promoting it, plus Miguel Arius. Miguel Arius as a member
of the President City Council. He's supportive of it. But it's not in
his It's not in his district. This is in Mike Krbasi's district. But
I want to just point out all the several of the people opposing it.
This is in a story from gv wire discussing it, which you know not
to be smirch. Every single person who writes for GV wire everything about gv
wire. But gv wire is funded by Granville Holmes. Okay, that's what
gv stands for. Okay, it's owned by Darius Assimi. Mike Carbassi does
like a weekly radio show with Darius Assimi. Mike Carbossi, a member of
the President City Council, does a weekly radio show with a real estate developer.
Susan Wittrup, the president of the President Unified Board of Trustees. Now,
Carbasi was not supportive of this apartment complex. He has opposed the project
in the past. He said he had not received a request to appeal.
Susan Wittrup, who's the president of the president Unified Board of Trustees, spoke
at a hearing for the Planning Commission in opposition to this, saying that basically
the purported objections to this project are that it would increase traffic along this stretch
of Herndon Avenue and other sort of related problems. Relating to traffic. Wittrup
testified and she said a multi unit housing complex of that size would obstruct emergency
responders ability to respond to calls, including to that of Taitarian Elementary School.
Safety and well being of our children must be our top priority. Witrup wrote,
So, this is a story in GV wire. Mike Kerbot story in
gv wire discussing the apartment complex. Mike Carbassi, who is on a gv
wires show with Darius Assimi, is opposing this. Susan Wittrup, who is
dating Darius Assimi, opposes this. Now Sheriff John Zanoni spoke out about it.
I'm not sure why. I don't know if John Zanoni has any connection
with Darius Assimi or not. I don't know. Maybe he lives in the
area and just dislikes I don't know if there's any connection, but doesn't this
seem weird? It's a lot of people who have connections to this one real
estate developer, all talking about this apartment complex and what a bad idea it
is. And I guess that this is one of the things about Fresno politics
that makes me a little uncertain, is you know, what are what are
we basing these decisions off of? I mean, I have no I have
no actual hard evidence that anything is actually really bad here, But isn't this
weird? Now? Beyond that, this is very much an example of not
in my backyardism? Right, So, one of the many obstacles to building
housing in California is basically a kind of the entrenched interests of people who are
already living in an area and already have houses, And that entrenched interest is
I don't want multi unit I don't want apartments near my house because people who
live in apartments commit more crimes and it lowers the property value of my house.
So not in my backyardism and not in my backyardism is something that infects
conservatives, it infects liberals, and infects kind of everybody, all right,
So it's not specific to anyone, it's not specific to anyone party, and
that seems very much to be what's happening here, I think is that this
is just classic nimbiism, that the real only objection to this is I don't
want anything that could impact the value of my home. Even though we obviously
need more housing in the city of Presdent, we need more multi unit dwellings,
and we want to promote, you know, more dwellings within the city,
like the infill development where we're trying to promote infill development, but not
like this, not in this way where we think it could you know,
adversely impact housing values. Now I see another story that apparently we're gonna try
to renovate the Manchester Mall, that the owners and developers of Manchester Mall are
gonna basically try to gut the whole thing and turn it into apartments. I'm
not exactly sure how that's gonna work. That seems like a very ambitious project,
Okay, but nobody cares about that. Why Because Manchester Mall is that
you know, Blackstone and Shields. Nobody is gonna know there's gonna not gonna
be any rich people saying, oh, well, I don't want any apartment
dwellers living near me. And I'm not saying that that's such concern are totally
meaningless, Like, look, you want especially if it's safety related. Yeah,
you want your kids to grow up in a safe area. But I
I guess I'm concerned when the Planning Commission is hearing from you know, this
person supported by a big real estate developer, this person supported by a big
real estate developer, all saying no, no, no, stop this separate
real estate development. I find this nervous, Like why a Fresney Unified school
board member is involved almost at all on the grounds of well, this will
increase traffic, which will make emergency responders times getting to this elementary school within
Fresno Unified make it more difficult. I mean a school board member could make
that objection about any building site proposed anywhere in the city of Fresno, right,
I mean they are anywhere within the boundaries of Presne Unified. I mean
that there's a there're a gazillion President Unified elementary school scattered all over the city.
So is Susan Wittrop gonna walk over with her concerns about traffic flow.
Anytime someone wants to build an apartment complex, the whole thing just seems I'm
just putting a bookmark on it. I sometimes have these things that I notice
and I see and I wish I had put a bookmark on it so I
could go back on the radio and say I told you so later on.
This seems like a thing. I don't know why it's a thing. And
I'd actually be really interested to talk to Miguel Arrius about all this, because
Arius is you know, as much as I usually disagree with Arius on ninety
nine percent of things, he's sort of making sense we need we're trying to
encourage infield development. Arius thinks that the city is at risk here of losing
if it comes to like a lawsuit. Arius is afraid that if the city
is sued that the planning commit that if the Planning Commission is sued, that
the city would lose. I'd be really interested to hear more what he has
to say about that. You know, Arius is an interesting guy. As
much as I disagree with him on stuff, he is kind of an independent
thinker, and he he's an interesting thinker anyway. And I must say I'm
i just find it. It's a methinks they doth protest too much sort of
situation, to quote the Bard. Why do we have the sheriff of Fresno
County, the president of the board of trustees, everyone, all these people
testifying in opposition to someone trying to build an apartment complex. I find it
odd. And the objections all seem it seems like the real estate developer tried
to develop, tried to develop the project in response to criticisms, it gets
thrown out. The whole thing seems a little suspicious to me. And you
know, again, I understand the instinct people want to protect their property values
if then and they have this this thought that if people build apartments, therefore
your property values go down. I get that instinct. But at the same
time, we got kind of need to do what's right for the city.
The problem is everyone has these attitudes up and down the state, and then
we don't build any new housing. And it's one aspect of many. Now,
if the state were less crazy with building in a million other respects,
if its environmental regulation was less crazy, if it let environmental wacko, if
it didn't let environmental wackos sue to stall projects as easily if it didn't have
all these other bad things that California does that make it so difficult and so
expensive to build housing in the state. Maybe people could have their Nimbi attitudes,
then we could still have more housing. But as it stands, like
as it stands, it seems very silly for the city on the one hand
to be spending all this money to encourage infield development and at the same time
shutting down I don't know, seems like a fairly reasonable project. I can't
say I've looked at every single detail, and I'm willing to by the way,
I'm willing to be convinced of the other side. I'm willing to be
convinced that I'm I'm a conspiracy theorist here, but seems odd to me.
When we return, I want to just talk a little bit more about Susan
Wittrup and her position on the Fresne Unified Board of Trustees that is next on
the John Girardi Show. Not to belabor this point, but I thought this
story was so odd being covered in gv wire owned by the Assimes, with
Susan Wittrup testifying against it, connected to Darius Assimi with Miguel Aarius opposing it
on Darius Sissime's radio show or not not a radio show, it's like an
online show. And this leads me to want to talk a little bit more
about Susan Wittrup, who's a member of the Fresdent Unified Board of Trustees now.
Susan Wittrup ran for Board of Trustees a couple of years ago, and
she was running for basically the Terry Slatic position to basically represent the Bullard region
within the Fresny Unified Board of Trustees. She ran as a Republican, and
I got to sort of see her speak at Republican stuff, and I was
never super thrilled. I get the sense that if she is a Republican,
it's in a very moderate sense. I just don't think she has much insight
into the kinds of conservative leaning concerns with regards to, you know, all
the various huge problems that we see in public schools. The conservatives have been
pointing out things like the hyper sexualization of curricula. You know, the various
kinds of those kinds of concerns are not first on her mind. And I've
seen her from her Facebook page, you know, circulating stuff. Here's a
list of the books that Ron DeSantis banned in Florida, like blithely sort of
sharing these things as if book banning is even a thing, which is nonsense.
It's like leftist librarians who want to equate parents objecting to sexually aggressive content
in the children's section of public libraries or in libraries for elementary schools. They
want to equate objecting to stuff like that with quote book banning, which is
such a silly use of language. But she's connected to Darius Assimi and the
semi funded her campaign to the tune of you know, he and affiliated businesses,
entities, et cetera. Gave her campaign a ton of money. Now,
I think a lot of people wound up begrudgingly supporting her because Terry Slatteck
was in that position and Slatick sort of made things untenable for himself, even
for most Republican voters who live in that kind of bullard area within Fresno Unified.
He had just basically one or two incidents too many of either yelling at
people or getting in shoving matches, et cetera. And I don't even know
exactly how honest to god conservative, he really was, so wit Trup became
basically, hey, here's a way to vote for someone who is in terry
slateck. But I guess I'm how can you not be I mean, how
can you not look at someone running for a school board race who has tons
of campaign support and such a close connection to a major builder and real estate
developer and not think why is he giving? You know, why is he
supporting her campaigns so much? I mean what I mean, look, people
don't rich people don't give I mean, maybe it's just their dating and he
really supports what she's doing. But I guess I am nervous about real estate
developers when they give tons and tons of money to political candidates and just the
effect of well does that have some effect? Is he trying to He's trying
to draw that person to do what he wants to do. And I'm not
saying anything any of this is corrupt or illicit or against the law. I
just want to be clear there. None of this is illegal, none of
this is illicit, but within the bounds of what's legal, it's you know,
it has to shade your opinion of these things, right, And so
why is a president Unified school member of the board of trustees, popping off
to go to the land the planning commission for a zoning a planning commission dispute
over whether or not to put an apartment complex on Herndon Avenue. Oh,
because it would slow down emergency responders times to this public to this one elementary
school that happens to be nearby. I mean maybe, but that really feels
like a bit of a stretch, if you ask me, I think,
and I I guess, I feel almost impolite to raise it, But how
can I not? And and I'm just not saying. Maybe there's very maybe
there's totally great, wonderful, innocent answers. Wittroup wanted to run for this,
Darius Seem supports her, gives her funding, and there's no quid pro
quo. Okay, that's fine. And and by the way, when I
say quid pro quo, I don't even mean an illegal quid pro quo.
Maybe that's all totally fine and totally on the up and up. I'm not
the jerk for asking about it, though, I'm not the jerk for saying,
hmm, what what what's going on here? I'm sure she's addressed it
before and she said, oh, no, no, there's nothing there,
And Okay, I guess that's what you have to say. But I think
people are always gonna look at this just a little hair skeptical. Now,
when we return, we're gonna shift gears and talk about the looming building gubernatorial
horse race, with Elenni Cunilacus joining the Fray to try to differentiate herself in
some way, shape or form. Yeah, that's the lieutenant governor for those
who don't know. That's next on the John Girardi Show. Elenni Cunilacus is
trying to kind of position herself I think for a run for governor. And
by the way, the run for governor in twenty twenty six. That's what
people are gearing up for. So we'll have our twenty twenty four elections in
November twenty twenty six, the California primaries in twenty twenty six. It's gonna
be an absolute free for all, the mother of all battles. As you
may see some real, real heavy hitters getting into the fray to try to
become the next governor of California and succeed Gavin Newsom. Here's some of the
people who might run. Now, Eleni Kunilacus, who's currently the lieutenant governor,
you'd think someone who is the lieutenant governor would have a leg up on
this would be sort of a a heavy favorite going into it. After all,
that is what the lieutenant governorship is. It is basically worth a bucket
of spit. They have basically no job. It is basically a holding pen
for people waiting to run for governor. And that's how Gavin Newsom treated it
for his eight years in that office. So you've got Eleni Kunilachus. But
then you've got the possibility that Rob Bonta, the Attorney General, will run.
Tony Atkins the Senate, the California State Senate Democrat Lee who used to
actually run an abortion clinic or was an abortion executive, some kind of abortion
business executive, she's gonna run. And then there's the looming possibility that I
mentioned Rob Bonte, that Javier Bessera might come back to run. The word
on the Street scuttle Bud is that Bessarah, who currently serves as the Obama
administration's head of the Department of Health and Human Services. And let's not remember
his let's not forget his illustrious past. He was California's attorney general throughout the
Trump years and was constantly suing Trump for stuff. He was an aggressively,
aggressively horrible, left wing California attorney general. Also the most maybe the most
pro abortion person in the whole Biden administration, and Biden gave him Health and
Human Services, which you don't often think of the Department of Health and Human
Services as a particularly sexy appointment within a presidential administration. Maybe those of us
normal folks, we don't necessarily think about Health and Human services that much.
Maybe we'd think like, whoever's the Secretary of State or the attorney general,
those are bigger things. No, no, No, Health and Human Services
oversees like five hundred billion dollars every year. So if we're talking about money
overseen, federal spending overseen, yeah, health and Human Services is maybe the
single biggest position of all the cabinet positions that the president appoints. So Bissarah
might leave the Biden administration win or lose after the twenty twenty four elections.
Even if Biden wins, a lot of people are thinking Bsarah will leave and
then he will run for governor of California in twenty twenty six. So this
is an absolute murderer's row of just the absolute worst people. And to top
it all off, the rumor I heard just floating around on the internet Kamala
Harris. That's the rumor that if Biden loses in twenty twenty four, Harris
would come back to California to run for governor in twenty twenty six. Lord
have mercy and save us. So that's the lineup that you could be seeing.
Kamala Harris, Jabier Bessera, Rob Bonta, Tony Atkins, all of
them before you get all of whom possibly have higher name recognition than the current
Lieutenant governor of California, Elenny Kunilacus. Now, how is Lieutenant Governor Kunelacus?
How is she trying to differentiate herself? Well, it seems like she's
differentiating herself as maybe trying to position herself as the more moderate Democrat in the
group. The one thing that the lieutenant governor is actually supposed to do is
lieutenant governor has some role sitting on I think it's either the Board of Regions
or Board of Trustees, whatever it is for the CSU and UC systems they're
sort of ex officio members, sort of helping govern and oversee the California State
University the two California State University well, the California State University System and the
University of California system. This was another amusing aspect of Governor Newsom's lieutenant governorship,
where again it's really fascinating what exactly Gavin Newsom did for his eight years
as lieutenant governor, because apparently he would blow off. He would regularly blow
off these meetings for the CSUS and UC's So Kunlakas has some kind of nominal
oversight for the universities. And she gave a speech to j PACK the Jewish
Public Affairs Committee of California last week. So that's already a little bit of
a bold move in California in the midst of student protests, etc. Palestine.
She's sort of positioning herself as I'm standing with Israel here, I'm going
to JPAK and I'm sounding a very pro Israel. Note she took the opportunity
to slam how the UC and CSU systems were handling pro Palestinian campus protests.
Now, there was a lot of ink spilled over the disaster that was happening
at UCLA. Less ink was spilled over a bunch of csus and ucs had
various kinds of disastrous interactions with student protesters. The president of Sonoma State,
I think just got suspended because he was because of how he was not dealing
with student protesters and need to pull that story up, and Kunilacus says,
basically, nobody was prepared for this. She said, even as the encampments
were building and the issues were building, and we had data of Jewish students
not just feeling unsafe, but frankly being unsafe, the campuses were not equipped
to quickly and swiftly move to handle the challenge in front of them. Said.
The story goes on. Leaders at the UC campuses in Berkeley and Riverside
negotiated with tent encampment protesters, a strategy that Cunilacus disagree with. Each campus
is handling these situations in their own way, with inconsistencies and frankly sometimes coming
up with agreements that they really don't have the authority to come up with.
She said. So basically what happens is these student protesters, they protest some
way, shape or form in which the university has some kind of connection with
Israel or purported connection with Israel, and they try to say, We're going
to keep sitting in until the university divests its investment in Israel, does this,
does that, And some of these universities actually are sitting with these kids
as if they are adults, and I mean they are legally adults, but
they are behaving like children, and is like negotiating with them, and Kunlacus
is pointing out, hey, you maybe don't have the authority as you know,
the president of you know, cal State Fullerton can't kind of make decisions
on certain things that impact the whole CSU system. When you're the president of
CSU Fullerton. That's different from being the president of I don't know, name
any private school of Notre Dame, Okay, the president of Notre Dame.
Notre Dame is just Notre Dame. It's that's it. There's no chain of
which Notre Dame is a seat. Okay, it is one location, right,
president of Notre Dame runs the whole shell. The president of cal State
Fullerton kind of can't make all the decisions on his own. He has to
appeal to the people who run the CSU system. As a whole. So
she's pointing out, hey, you can't make all these I don't know that
Fullerton was the one she was talking about, but some of these university presidents
are making these decisions. They don't have the authority to make the most important
thing that we can be doing, she said. From the UC standpoint is
clarifying where the lines are between freedom to assemble, freedom of speech, and
crossing over into the territory of violations of state law, federal law, of
course, but also violations of codes of conduct, Cunilocus said. Cunilacus mentioned
anti Semitic tweets from a UC Davis professor shortly after the October seventh Thamas attacks
in Israel. Gemma de Cristo, an assistant professor of American studies, American
studies. Because history was just normal American history, wasn't, you know,
radicalized enough. We have to have American quote American studies. Anytime you've got
studies at the end of it, have your antenna up. Posted a message
attacking Zionist journalist with threatening emojis. It is still under investigation now. If
that does not cross a line of a code of conduct, my god,
what does Kunlacus said Kulak has called for schools to clearly identify where the lines
are to enact disciplinary measures. She also criticized Sonoma State There we Go for
agreeing to demands of pro Palestinian protesters, including creating an advisory council with membership
determined by the campus Students for Justice in Palestine group. As reported by the
Press Democrat, they do not represent the majority of Jews here and it's really
just devastating, Cunlacus said. She called students chanting from the river to the
sea outrageous. We have to fight back and educate our students so they understand
the very importance morally and from a national security standpoint of the existence, celebration,
and empowerment of Israel in the region. Kunalacus said, So there you
go. I it seems as though Kunilacus, and maybe this is smart.
Maybe she wants to position herself as hey in this. Maybe she's trying to
say, hey, republic Wilkins, you know you're going to have this see
of absolute lunatic choices to vote for in twenty twenty six, Vote for me.
I'm at least somewhat saying I at least don't think Jewish kids should be
harassed on UC and CSU campuses. I mean, she seems somewhat engaged at
least with these campuses in a way that maybe that was the accusation against Gavin
Newsom anyway, was that in spite of the the only kind of job that
the Lieutenant governor had was some kind of oversight for the CSU and u SEE
systems, and even then he didn't really do it. He would blow off
meetings and stuff like that. She seems to actually kind of be taking at
least this aspect of the job somewhat seriously. When we return, just a
closing thought about Israel and Palestine, do we sort of take for granted the
fact that Israel can shoot down rockets and that rocket attacks aren't very effective?
Of does that warp our thinking about this whole thing? Next on the John
Girardi Show, So some big Iranian news over the weekend. The president and
national security some other major government official from Iran died in a helicopter crash over
the weekend, and it led me sort of think about the Iranian position and
our sort of how we view the Israel Palestine conflict, how people tend to
view it. One of the things that sort of I think has distorted our
way of looking at it is how good Israel's defense systems are with our money
funding it, but how that almost warps things into not taking seriously the threat
that Israel faces. Explain what I mean. Hamas in the south, in
Gaza, Hezbolah in the north, fire rockets at israelis all the time.
The rockets are largely unsuccessful, largely don't work, and often Israel has this
it's iron dome technology basically to take out incoming fire. About a month or
about two months ago, I guess, there was a massive rocket strike,
the Iranian funded strike against Israel, where it was complete, almost completely ineffective
because of Israel's defensive mechanisms, and the Iranians clearly were behind it. Iranians
attacked and people were afraid this is going to fan things into a regional war,
blah blah blah, and Israel can't overreact. Excusrael can't overreact. I
guess it's sort of like people almost have this sense of like, let's think
about it this way. If someone fired a thousand rockets at Florida, at
South Carolina, at Maine and let's suppose we either had or did not have
the Iron Dome set up. Would America be something America can't overreact. No,
we'd be like ready to freaking roll. And it just seems like Israel's
like a victim of their own success, like because their defense systems work so
well and the rocket attacks seems so ineffective. People seem to act like Israel
should just be cool with it with people firing rockets at them in a way
that America never would be. I don't think anyway. It's an interesting dynamic
that I think people call for more restraint on Israel when we would never tolerate
this in America. That'll do it for the John Gerrardy Show. We'll see
you next time on Power Talk.