Speaker 1: Voters this November locally are going to be asked to
Speaker 1: approve something in the area. Between all the different school
Speaker 1: districts and the State Center Community College District, about two
Speaker 1: billion combined dollars worth of bond measure money. This is
Speaker 1: on top of Proposition two, which is a statewide ten
Speaker 1: billion dollar bond measure. All of this to fund public
Speaker 1: K through twelve school districts and community college is all
Speaker 1: up down California. And kind of the way that this
Speaker 1: works is if your local school district does a bond
Speaker 1: measure and raises money, then they can get some form
Speaker 1: of some degree of matching bond funding from the state.
Speaker 1: So as a result, all of these different local school districts,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, all at the same time, are
Speaker 1: all having a bond measure pop up. And again, let's
Speaker 1: remember what a bond is. A bond is a loan
Speaker 1: made to some municipal entity like a school district. The
Speaker 1: school district gets all the money and then you, the taxpayers,
Speaker 1: have to pay the loan back with interest, usually within
Speaker 1: your property taxes. And the terms of these loans are
Speaker 1: something like thirty years. My wife and I for our
Speaker 1: house in Clovis we're still paying property taxes for bond
Speaker 1: measures that were passed for Close Unified in two thousand,
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, twenty twelve, twenty twenty, and now
Speaker 1: we're staring down the barrel of twenty twenty four. So
Speaker 1: with all of that being said, President Unified has got
Speaker 1: a massive, like almost five hundred million dollars bond measure,
Speaker 1: Clovis Unified as a four hundred million dollar bond measure,
Speaker 1: State Center Community College District has almost set one hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars bond measure. All these local school districts and
Speaker 1: the community colleges are asking voters in the San Joaquin
Speaker 1: Valley saying or Unified Central Unified to vote for bond
Speaker 1: measures to give them money, to give them money that frankly,
Speaker 1: I don't think are tied to need. And I think
Speaker 1: we should ask ourselves some hard questions about how well
Speaker 1: is this district really being run such that we should
Speaker 1: be giving them more money for physical investment when they
Speaker 1: don't have their normal educational house in order. And this
Speaker 1: leads me to a fascinating story about something I did
Speaker 1: not know about. An opinion piece in GV Wire written
Speaker 1: by Stephen resh Mister Resh is an a retired President
Speaker 1: Unified teacher. He taught English and German for thirty years
Speaker 1: within Fresney, and he highlights this program called Ingenuity, which
Speaker 1: I see Fresne Unified makes a lot of use of.
Speaker 1: But also I'm doing a little digging Close Unified does too,
Speaker 1: so I don't think this is just a pure Fresney
Speaker 1: Unified thing. Presny Unified's bad. Close Unified is good. Seemingly
Speaker 1: this is a widespread program. What is ingenuity? Let's get started,
Speaker 1: mister Resh writes, when students get their high school diplomas,
Speaker 1: you assume that they've all met key standards in all
Speaker 1: requisite areas. You suppose that they've all met the grade.
Speaker 1: They've all made the grade.
Speaker 2: Excuse me.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately that hasn't always been the case during the past
Speaker 1: decade or so. In Fresne Unified. It all ties in
Speaker 1: with a program called Credit Recovery and a set of courses.
Speaker 2: Which he puts in scare quotes, courses produced.
Speaker 1: By a company called Imagine Ingenuity. Yes, it's ingenuity, but
Speaker 1: it's on the edge. As previously reported in Gvwire and elsewhere,
Speaker 1: credit Recovery is a way for high school students in
Speaker 1: the district to dodge a failing grade in many of
Speaker 1: their classes, they don't wind up with a passing mark
Speaker 1: through traditional means, retaking tests, turning an extra credit, doing
Speaker 1: well on a final exam. Instead, they attend ingenuity sessions
Speaker 1: where they sit in front of computer screens and complete
Speaker 1: watered down versions of the courses they're failing, and so
Speaker 1: even though they might otherwise fail several important classes, they
Speaker 1: subsequently get enough credits to attend commencement and receive diplomas.
Speaker 1: Sometimes students are able to complete such putative courses in
Speaker 1: record time, occasionally in a matter of days. Clearly, the
Speaker 1: curriculum of an entire semester in biology, say where in
Speaker 1: American history can hardly be covered, much less mastered under
Speaker 1: such conditions. Now this is the astonishing thing. Okay, so
Speaker 1: this is some remedial thing. Kids like failing the class.
Speaker 1: So instead of the harder work of making him retake
Speaker 1: all the tests and or just making him retake the
Speaker 1: whole course, they do these ingenuity sessions where he kind
Speaker 1: of blitzes through the material, takes sort of an easier
Speaker 1: version of it, and then can get some credits enough
Speaker 1: to graduate enough to advance a grade level, so we're
Speaker 1: further watering down our standards of achievement. Now you might think, okay, well,
Speaker 1: this is for the you know, five percent of kids
Speaker 1: who are kind of flunking out or you know ten
Speaker 1: percent of kids who are flunking out. Fifty three percent
Speaker 1: of district seniors in Fresdent Unified earn ingenuity credits. A
Speaker 1: few months ago, the Office of the Interim Superintendent issued
Speaker 1: a memo that shed some light on Fresendent Unified's use
Speaker 1: of credit recovery through this ingenuity program. According to the
Speaker 1: June twenty first memo, President Unified paid five hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty one, one hundred and fifty dollars for edgenuity materials
Speaker 1: and support in the twenty twenty two to twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three term. In the twenty three to twenty four term,
Speaker 1: that price tag shot up to five hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: one thousand, eight hundred and fifty dollars. The memo also
Speaker 1: indicated how many students have recently participated in ingenuity sessions.
Speaker 1: It turns out that fifty three percent of the district's
Speaker 1: seniors earned at least one credit through the online ingenuity
Speaker 1: curriculum doing the during the twenty twenty two to twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three term. In the twenty twenty two to twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three academic year, students received on average eighteen credits
Speaker 1: this way. That average went down a bit last year
Speaker 1: to an average of sixteen credits. At present, there's no
Speaker 1: upper limit to the number of credits that students can
Speaker 1: rack up using this method. So most of the seniors
Speaker 1: at Front Unified, just over a majority fifty three percent,
Speaker 1: are getting some of their credits through this ingenuity system,
Speaker 1: not by clearly they're getting a failing grade, a non
Speaker 1: passing grade, so they're not being made to retake tests,
Speaker 1: not being made to retake a course. No, Instead they're
Speaker 1: doing this water down sort of ingenuity thing where they
Speaker 1: can kind of blitz through a whole course in a
Speaker 1: couple of days and still get these credits enough to graduate.
Speaker 1: The negative impact on learning culture. So mister Resh again,
Speaker 1: this is uh. This is Stephen Resh, thirty years teacher
Speaker 1: within Frostening Unified, writing about credit recovery.
Speaker 2: The credit recovery.
Speaker 1: Scheme of basically, you take a little online course for
Speaker 1: like three days to make up for the fact that
Speaker 1: you fail to pass a semester lung. Using credit recovery
Speaker 1: has certainly streamlined many students acquisition of course credits and
Speaker 1: thus generated a significant rise in local high school graduate rates.
Speaker 1: In addition, however, it's impacted school culture in significant and
Speaker 1: disturbing ways. Doing edge doing the Ingenuity program has become
Speaker 1: a learned behavior. As one district instructor put it to me,
Speaker 1: a significant number of students, known in some teacher circles
Speaker 1: as quote frequent flyers, often use credit recovery to obtain
Speaker 1: passing grades with minimum effort. As a result, they tend
Speaker 1: to regard traditional classroom instruction as being somewhat irrelevant. One
Speaker 1: district teacher, Jeremy Wright, addressed the school board last year
Speaker 1: and shared his concerns about this system. In his view,
Speaker 1: the Ingenuity program has seriously impaired classroom instruction. Now that
Speaker 1: credit recovery is available, a number of students no longer
Speaker 1: see much point in paying attention in classes. So basically,
Speaker 1: these kids all realize, well, these kids don't care about
Speaker 1: the quality of the grades they get. They know that
Speaker 1: they can do this much easier version of the course
Speaker 1: at the end of the semester, so they're all just
Speaker 1: tuning out during the year, so, and it'll only take
Speaker 1: a couple of days as opposed to studying over the
Speaker 1: course of a whole semester. They'll just come in at
Speaker 1: the end and just do their enginuity. Oh yeah, as
Speaker 1: right put it. Jeremy Wright and teacher in president unified
Speaker 1: to testified about this to the school board. As Right
Speaker 1: put it, quote, it's insulting to us as teachers. It's
Speaker 1: also insulting to the kids that did hard work and
Speaker 1: pulled their grade up and got the B or C.
Speaker 1: He argued that this also weakens the quality of schools,
Speaker 1: no kidding. Despite the appearance of student success, the product
Speaker 1: we're putting out there is more important than a graduation rate.
Speaker 1: Also questionable a or some additional costs linked to the
Speaker 1: way that ingenuity has been implemented. Consider that some teachers
Speaker 1: are paid to oversee credit recovery sessions during summer school.
Speaker 1: Students in such sessions, however, only have to report to
Speaker 1: class once they've finished their ingenuity assignments. After reaching that milestone,
Speaker 1: they don't have to attend anymore. Why some have wondered
Speaker 1: should the district pay teachers for so many weeks of
Speaker 1: instruction and not require the students to attend the sessions.
Speaker 1: The district has a different attitude toward credit recovery. One
Speaker 1: district spokesperson told me, quote, the use of ingenuity software
Speaker 1: has provided our students with valuable opportunities to attain credits
Speaker 1: toward graduation. Her comments mirror the district's narrative that programs
Speaker 1: like Credit Recovery serve students' interests and provide them with
Speaker 1: a wide range of opportunities that they otherwise wouldn't have.
Speaker 2: This is unbelievable. I had no idea about any of this.
Speaker 1: I'm curious how many of you knew about this. So
Speaker 1: the district is defending this, and here's this teacher in
Speaker 1: the trenches knows other teachers in the trenches, who is
Speaker 1: telling us the kids understand that they don't really have
Speaker 1: to work hard all year. They take this remedial summer
Speaker 1: school online class where they can complete the whole thing
Speaker 1: in two or three days in some cases, get the
Speaker 1: credits and then not have to show up for the
Speaker 1: rest of the allotted summer school time when they're supposed
Speaker 1: to be doing this. Meanwhile, I'm sure a union negotiated
Speaker 1: contract some teachers are getting paid over summer school to
Speaker 1: sit there when not all the students are even required
Speaker 1: to be there. So what the heck are we even
Speaker 1: talking about.
Speaker 2: And all of this.
Speaker 1: Is clearly in the service of making Fresno Unified look
Speaker 1: better than it is by artificially inflating graduation rates. But
Speaker 1: these kids are graduating not on the strength of what
Speaker 1: you would imagine to be.
Speaker 2: You know, why would someone.
Speaker 1: Graduate high school because they've done the required coursework, because
Speaker 1: they've attained the necessary credits, they've got enough passing grades,
Speaker 1: they did what they were.
Speaker 2: Supposed to do.
Speaker 1: No, they're not doing the normal coursework. They're blowing off.
Speaker 1: Some of these kids are blowing off the normal coursework
Speaker 1: for the whole semester and then just showing up in
Speaker 1: summer to do a rigorous week of school and then
Speaker 1: bon voyage. Ah well, yes, feel free to advance along
Speaker 1: to eleventh grade. Feel free to walk at your graduation.
Speaker 2: Now. Rash the author of this piece.
Speaker 1: In GV wire, and I'll retweet for my twins account
Speaker 1: Twitter dot com slash president Johnny at Fresne Johnny He's
Speaker 1: He then proceeds to give the standardized test scores within
Speaker 1: Fresney Unified to demonstrate just how unbelievably poorly Fresenent Unified
Speaker 1: students are doing. In twenty twenty three to thirty three
Speaker 1: percent of the PRESNE Unified eleventh graders tested met or
Speaker 1: exceeded standards. In English, only a third of them met
Speaker 1: the standards, meaning sixty six percent of them did not
Speaker 1: meet grade level standards in English, only twenty three percent
Speaker 1: of them met or exceeded math standards, meaning seventy six
Speaker 1: percent of them seventy six seventy seven percent of them
Speaker 1: failed to meet math standards. Good enough at math, I
Speaker 1: can I can now that up those twenty three point
Speaker 1: three one percent metare exceeded, or go seventy six point
Speaker 1: six percent of them did not meet. So you've got
Speaker 1: three quarters of these kids are not at grade level
Speaker 1: for math, two thirds of these kids are not at
Speaker 1: grade level for reading. Such results resh writes just don't
Speaker 1: square with fresnew Unified's high graduation rates, and they suggest
Speaker 1: a gaping disconnect between credits earned and educational benchmarks that
Speaker 1: were actually achieved. It's hard to square the ongoing use
Speaker 1: of credit recovery with the district's purported goal of boosting
Speaker 1: student achievement. The interim superintendent's memo reflects a solid commitment
Speaker 1: to continuing credit recovery in this new school year. Fresne
Speaker 1: Unified plans to continue partnering with Ingenuity in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four to twenty twenty five to maximize opportunities for students
Speaker 1: to earn a high school diploma and access post secondary options.
Speaker 1: It's hard to see how diminishing the worth of high
Speaker 1: school diplomas in this fashion serves student's interests. Such individuals
Speaker 1: might indeed get into college programs, but will they be
Speaker 1: prepared for the challenges that how to wait them there.
Speaker 1: A cross functional team has also been meeting each month,
Speaker 1: according to a district spokesperson quote, to determine next steps, trends,
Speaker 1: system recommendations, and best practices. Given the bogus nature of
Speaker 1: credit recovery. When wonders what the phrase best practices could
Speaker 1: possibly mean in this context, this is the district that
Speaker 1: wants you to give them a almost a billion dollars
Speaker 1: of your taxpayer money so that they can get five
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars. That's what this bond measure coming up
Speaker 1: is going to be for fres New Unified. And by
Speaker 1: the way, it looks like close Unified uses this program too.
Speaker 1: I don't have the numbers for how many kids within
Speaker 1: Clothes Unified use this program, but they're using it also.
Speaker 1: When we return, we'll talk a little bit more about
Speaker 1: the funding side of all this with the bond measures.
Speaker 1: This was a dynamite article, Jesuis. We'll be back with
Speaker 1: more on the John Girardi Show. An incredible piece in
Speaker 1: GV wire. You got to check it out. I've retweeted
Speaker 1: it from my Twitter account Twitter dot com slash president
Speaker 1: Johnny at Fresno Johnny, this is about the credit recovery
Speaker 1: program that Presney Unified has through a company called Edgeenuity,
Speaker 1: where basically, a kid fails a course over the course
Speaker 1: of a whole semester can goof off, not pay attention,
Speaker 1: not participate for a whole semester, and then after the
Speaker 1: semester's over, can participate in.
Speaker 2: A several days long.
Speaker 1: Credit recovery class. Where As this teacher, Stephen Resh who
Speaker 1: is a longtime German and English professor at teacher within
Speaker 1: Presney Unified, Basically they can sit around in front of
Speaker 1: a computer for a couple of days, take an extremely
Speaker 1: watered down version of the course. You know, a whole
Speaker 1: semester's worth in just a couple of days and still
Speaker 1: get the necessary credits from that class. And again I
Speaker 1: think this needs to factor in. Stuff like this needs
Speaker 1: to factor into the local discussions about school bond measures. Okay,
Speaker 1: because clearly, if school districts are using this thing, this program,
Speaker 1: it's making a mockery of the whole system.
Speaker 2: This is just a.
Speaker 1: As Resh pointed out, this is insulting to the teachers,
Speaker 1: like why on earth should a teacher try hard all
Speaker 1: year if the kid is just gonna blow it off
Speaker 1: and do an ingenuity class in the summer. But as
Speaker 1: Resh also points out, maybe teachers' unions that maybe the
Speaker 1: teacher's union within President Unified doesn't mind it.
Speaker 2: Why because.
Speaker 1: You can pay some teacher for summer school just to
Speaker 1: sit there while kids sit on their computers doing their
Speaker 1: credit recovery ingenuity class for a couple of days, and
Speaker 1: then the student leaves, but the teacher still sits there
Speaker 1: for whatever is the allotted time frame. The kid doesn't
Speaker 1: have to stay the whole time, but the teacher sits
Speaker 1: there the full time, earning their union negotiated I'm sure money.
Speaker 1: And this is the frustrating thing about this is that
Speaker 1: the interests that so many of these people have, the
Speaker 1: interests of the various parties don't really seem to be
Speaker 1: aligned that much towards students succeeding. The teacher's interest so
Speaker 1: much is in schools as a jobs program for them.
Speaker 1: That's the Here's the teachers' union, one of the massive
Speaker 1: negotiating partners in all this, within Fresney Unified. Who again,
Speaker 1: what is the point of a union. The point of
Speaker 1: a union is to get more money, more jobs, better hours,
Speaker 1: better working additions, better benefits, et cetera for its members.
Speaker 1: It's looking at this that the union exists for the members.
Speaker 1: That is how you judge the effectiveness ineffectiveness of a
Speaker 1: teacher's union, of any union. It's not so much focused
Speaker 1: on the work product. Okay, if kids get educated, I
Speaker 1: mean that's maybe that's a happy buy product. But fundamentally
Speaker 1: educating kids is not the job of the union. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: administrators within Fresney Unified are not so much interested in
Speaker 1: kids learning as much as they are interested in giving
Speaker 1: off the public perception and that kids are learning. Because
Speaker 1: if the public thinks kids are learning, then the superintendent,
Speaker 1: the school board members overseeing at the administrators get to
Speaker 1: keep their jobs, so of course they're going to be
Speaker 1: they're going to look at, oh my gosh, we're going
Speaker 1: to have such a huge dropout rate. What are we
Speaker 1: going to how are we gonna get these kids to
Speaker 1: actually graduate? And then along comes a program like Ingenuity,
Speaker 1: this credit recovery scheme where basically, well, well the kid
Speaker 1: can just kind of take a water down version of
Speaker 1: the class for a couple of days after the semester's over,
Speaker 1: after they've blown off the whole semester and uh, and
Speaker 1: then they get the credits.
Speaker 2: And then that'll allow them to graduate.
Speaker 1: And fifty three percent a President Unified seniors apparently are
Speaker 1: doing this credit recovery scheme for at least some credits.
Speaker 1: So this is massively overinflating, Like why do the state
Speaker 1: standardized test scores show that two thirds of kids in
Speaker 1: Presdey Unified can't read at grade level, three quarters of
Speaker 1: them can't do math at grade level, and yet their
Speaker 1: graduation rates are still quite high. Well, it's because of
Speaker 1: stuff like this. They are advancing these kids who have
Speaker 1: not actually achieved. And then they ask you for five
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars in a bond measure, which really means
Speaker 1: you have to pay almost a billion dollars in taxes.
Speaker 1: Clovis Unified is asking you for four hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: for a bond measure, meaning that you have to pay
Speaker 1: almost eight hundred million dollars in your taxes.
Speaker 2: It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Why do we want to keep financially and physically investing
Speaker 1: in schools that are committed to just fundamentally flawed visions.
Speaker 1: I've said it once, I have said it a million times.
Speaker 1: These schools take it as their goal. Universal college. Everyone
Speaker 1: who if you graduate, it means you're ready for college.
Speaker 1: Everyone should go to college, every universal college. Refusing to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that most people in America will not get a
Speaker 1: four year college degree, and that those people need jobs
Speaker 1: to those people need gainful employment. Those people need some
Speaker 1: opportunity to find the work for themselves, to give them
Speaker 1: purpose and a meaningful life. And with President Unified, with
Speaker 1: so many public high school, public schools in California, we're
Speaker 1: preparing kids for nothing. We are preparing they're not adequately
Speaker 1: prepared for college. We keep graduating them as if they are,
Speaker 1: but they're not, and they're not prepared to get a
Speaker 1: normal job in the real world.
Speaker 2: You know what, they're prepared for. It.
Speaker 1: They're prepared for a liminal flim flam three or four
Speaker 1: years of maybe taking some classes at city, not sure,
Speaker 1: getting into debt, maybe going to State, getting a couple
Speaker 1: of credits. Maybe maybe they get some Mickey master degree.
Speaker 2: Maybe they don't.
Speaker 1: Maybe they waste through four or five years flim flamming
Speaker 1: around between president, city, president, State and don't even wind
Speaker 1: up with a degree. And they want you to give
Speaker 1: them five hundred million dollars for reasons that seem to
Speaker 1: have nothing to do necessarily with imminent need of the
Speaker 1: physical spaces in their buildings, but just because well there's
Speaker 1: a state bond measure, so and we want to get
Speaker 1: the money, we want to get the matching money.
Speaker 2: So all we got to do with bond measure.
Speaker 1: Just this reflexive, unthinking instinct that you need to pay
Speaker 1: them more money when we return. How housing issues get
Speaker 1: distorted by California law. That's next on the John Gerrardy Show.
Speaker 1: One of the many things I hate about how California
Speaker 1: kind of regulates housing.
Speaker 2: Is how it turns.
Speaker 1: It makes everything like so ramped up and critical and important.
Speaker 1: It leaves you with so few options that any objection
Speaker 1: whatsoever to some kind of lower income housing development or
Speaker 1: a homeless housing development, any kind of objection to it,
Speaker 1: you get labeled as a nimby a not in my
Speaker 1: backyard person. Which this is a problem up and down
Speaker 1: the state in a lot of different contexts. Basically, there
Speaker 1: is a dearth of housing in California. We have way
Speaker 1: more people seeking homes than we have homes available. This
Speaker 1: artificially inflates the prices of homes, and one of the
Speaker 1: many factors that contributes to it is the attitude within
Speaker 1: a lot of local governments called nimbiism not in my backyardism. Basically,
Speaker 1: if you're you know, some bougie city in Marin County
Speaker 1: and someone says, hey, I'd love to build a one
Speaker 1: hundred unit apartment complex for middle income people to live in, well,
Speaker 1: the bougie residents of this bougie Marine County town will
Speaker 1: probably go to their city councils we don't want that.
Speaker 1: Why it'll lower our property values, and then that shuts
Speaker 1: it down, and that's why Marine County gets sort of
Speaker 1: it's this vicious cycle of if you never allow more
Speaker 1: housing for middle class people, then no middle class people
Speaker 1: can afford to live in Marin County, and anyone who
Speaker 1: wants to work in San Francisco has to live further
Speaker 1: and further and further away, unless they already own the
Speaker 1: home or have been there, or.
Speaker 2: Et gazillionaires, or they're just homeless, so.
Speaker 1: Not in my Backyardism is a kind of attitude that
Speaker 1: results in local governments blocking the establishment of various kinds
Speaker 1: of housing. But you also have that in confluence with
Speaker 1: California environmental laws and California labor laws that make the
Speaker 1: cost of construction so much higher. SEQUA, the California Environmental
Speaker 1: Quality Act requires all kinds of environmental impact plans and
Speaker 1: studies to be drawn up in advance before the development
Speaker 1: of some new house or housing complex or multi unit dwelling.
Speaker 1: The City of Fresno had done one, an extensive one
Speaker 1: for the city, which the courts are now saying is inadequate,
Speaker 1: which could be putting a halt to like a dozen
Speaker 1: projects in the Fresno area. You have the threat with
Speaker 1: SEQUA of some outside group coming in to sue to
Speaker 1: stop construction of some housing projects, and sometimes so they're
Speaker 1: importing sort of NIMBI concerns about not wanting lower income housing,
Speaker 1: not wanting property values to produced, et cetera, importing NIMBI values,
Speaker 1: using environmental law as a pretext for doing so, saying oh,
Speaker 1: this will.
Speaker 2: Have such a bad impact on the environment, you can't
Speaker 2: approve that.
Speaker 1: We need to stop this, And people can file these
Speaker 1: sequa California Environmental Quality Act lawsuits even if they are
Speaker 1: not really directly impacted by the construction of this multi
Speaker 1: unit dwelling or this this construction project, this housing project.
Speaker 1: California changes the normal American rules of legal standing. So
Speaker 1: usually again, to file a lawsuit, you've got to show
Speaker 1: that you were actually somehow directly harmed by some action. Okay,
Speaker 1: someone hits me with a car, I can sue them.
Speaker 1: If someone hits my buddy with a car, I can't
Speaker 1: sue them. My buddy has to sue. Right, With an
Speaker 1: environmental law, it's really hard to show that someone actually
Speaker 1: is experiencing direct, cognizable harm. So California just kind of
Speaker 1: opens it up to anybody. So what you're seeing is
Speaker 1: not just you know, whacked out left wing environmental nonprofits
Speaker 1: who can sue to stop some kind of construction project
Speaker 1: and hold up the whole thing. You can also have
Speaker 1: people who just you know, don't want their property values
Speaker 1: lowered by a multi unit dwelling complex. They can jump
Speaker 1: in and file a phony, baloney environmental lawsuit. You can
Speaker 1: get competing builders jumping in and filing a lawsuit to
Speaker 1: stop construction. And if you think about the cost and
Speaker 1: the risk of like, okay, well, if you want to
Speaker 1: commit to building a major construction project as a builder,
Speaker 1: as a real estate developer, as an investor, I mean
Speaker 1: that's a huge additional amount of risk. That adds additional
Speaker 1: cost which eventually trickles down to the consumer, making it
Speaker 1: such that it's almost impossible to build housing that is
Speaker 1: actually affordable to lower income people. Meaning the state, in
Speaker 1: its infinite wisdom, instead of addressing all of those root problems,
Speaker 1: instead subsidizes the demand, instead of doing anything to allow
Speaker 1: more supply, getting rid of its environmental it's insane environmental
Speaker 1: laws chipping away at the the ability of local governments
Speaker 1: to sort of stop things like this. No, instead we
Speaker 1: subsidize the demand. The only way that builders can afford
Speaker 1: to build lower income housing units is with huge handouts
Speaker 1: of cash from the state. Then there's labor union stuff
Speaker 1: that forces the construction prices to go up, up, up,
Speaker 1: up up up up, which that increases price. You know
Speaker 1: in red states where they don't really have much homelessness
Speaker 1: at all, how does this work. Well, they don't have
Speaker 1: insane environmental laws. Construction workers make a normal amount of money.
Speaker 1: Cities don't have as much ability to zone and restrict things.
Speaker 2: And so people just build more stuff.
Speaker 1: They build more stuff, and they don't have as many
Speaker 1: homeless people.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Fresno is unfortunate in the sense that I think our
Speaker 1: city council on this issue is full of fairly reasonable
Speaker 1: people with a fairly reasonable spectrum of opinions. But the
Speaker 1: problem is any one side or the other can get
Speaker 1: really bitter at each other if they disagree, because there
Speaker 1: just aren't a lot of options left. Okay, we want
Speaker 1: to build, we want to convert some hotel to housing
Speaker 1: for more homeless people. Some city council members are concerned
Speaker 1: about it because there's a cannabis dispensary and a liquor
Speaker 1: store right nearby, and says, hey, maybe this isn't a
Speaker 1: great idea, And then they get blowbacks, ay, oh what
Speaker 1: is this nimbi as, Oh, you just hate the whole
Speaker 1: you don't want any housing. You want all the homeless
Speaker 1: people out on the street. No, I don't want homeless
Speaker 1: people out on the street. But you're talking about setting
Speaker 1: this up right next to a cannabis dispensary, right next
Speaker 1: to a liquor store?
Speaker 2: Is that really a good idea?
Speaker 1: And the urgency of it gets ramped up to eleven
Speaker 1: because there just aren't a lot of options.
Speaker 2: There aren't a lot of options.
Speaker 1: Builders have only so many places where they can build,
Speaker 1: only so many ways they can start projects without facing
Speaker 1: environmental lawsuits, only so many opportunities to obtain state funding,
Speaker 1: and usually you need the local government to.
Speaker 2: Support you to obtain state funding.
Speaker 1: So this dynamic is at play right now within the
Speaker 1: City of Fresno over a couple of housing projects. So
Speaker 1: Dot Mayor Jerry Dyer spoke Friday at Fresno Housing That's
Speaker 1: nonprofit Fresno Housing's first inaugural State of Affordable Housing luncheon,
Speaker 1: alongside Fresno Housing CEO Tyrone Roderick, Williams County Supervisor Nathan Maxick,
Speaker 1: State Housing and Development Director Gustavo Velaskaz, and others, dire
Speaker 1: emphasized the central role the city plays and securing funding
Speaker 1: for housing, especially affordable housing. So yeah, so again, because
Speaker 1: there's no way it's financially sustainable to build multi unit
Speaker 1: dwellings for lower income people because again the state makes
Speaker 1: it way too expensive. Ever to do that, you need
Speaker 1: a state subsidy to make the thing financially feasible. The
Speaker 1: city is the one that goes to the state to
Speaker 1: ask for those subsidies. Local government must drive housing. If not,
Speaker 1: our unhoused population will increase dramatically, DIYers said, But the
Speaker 1: city council may not be on the same page. In
Speaker 1: the stories in Gvware, Council members have twice in the
Speaker 1: past eight months denied multi family housing projects. One vote
Speaker 1: in July rejected a four story market rate apartment complex
Speaker 1: at Herndon and Prospect Avenues. In December twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: the council turned down in an affordable housing project at
Speaker 1: Bullard and Fresno Air Avenues it had previously approved, and
Speaker 1: on August seventh, the state's Housing Department sent a letter
Speaker 1: acquired by Gvwire to Diyer's administration saying the decision thretens
Speaker 1: the city's required housing goals. Now there's this discussion about
Speaker 1: the Quality Inn located at Bullard, just a little bit
Speaker 1: east of the forty one, in between the forty one
Speaker 1: and Theesta Street. The Quality In conversion proposed by rh
Speaker 1: Community Builders and Upholdings would have provided fifty eight units
Speaker 1: of affordable housing, with thirty dedicated to the chronically homeless. Okay,
Speaker 1: so there's this old quality in there. They want to
Speaker 1: turn it into affordable housing, have thirty of the units
Speaker 1: dedicated to the homeless. In April of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: the council unanimously agreed to submit an application to request
Speaker 1: home key funding to convert the motel into housing. In November,
Speaker 1: the state granted the project sixteen point five million dollars.
Speaker 1: After vocal opposition by some neighbors to the project, Council
Speaker 1: members Miguel Arius, Gary Brettfeld, Microbossi Tyler Maxwell and Luis
Speaker 1: Chavez denied the project on a technicality. Council members on
Speaker 1: Alisa Pirea and Nelsa Sparza support of the project. Now,
Speaker 1: gv wire has this map showing the proposed site, which
Speaker 1: again it's on It's at Bullard and Theesta Avenue, just
Speaker 1: a little bit east of forty one. There's a housing
Speaker 1: project right next door, a cannabis dispensary right next door
Speaker 1: to that a liquor store. Opponents of the project talked
Speaker 1: about the blight brought by homelessness. Project developers during the
Speaker 1: council meeting said property management ensures safety among residents. So,
Speaker 1: and that's the thing, Like, I kind of think people
Speaker 1: on both sides of this are fairly reasonable people, and
Speaker 1: their concerns are fairly reasonable. On the one hand, Asparsa
Speaker 1: and Perea are saying, hey, we got to build something,
Speaker 1: We gotta build something somewhere here, an opportunity to let's
Speaker 1: do it. On the other side, you've got you know,
Speaker 1: it's not just right. It's not just a right winger
Speaker 1: Gary Breadfeld. No, it's not just Gary. And by the way,
Speaker 1: Gary Bredefeld gets painted as this right wing, wild eyed
Speaker 1: right winger. He's a really pretty reasonable person. So him
Speaker 1: and Carbasi and all these other Tyler Maxwell, all these
Speaker 1: other members are saying, hey, it's right next door to
Speaker 1: a cannabis dispensary.
Speaker 2: That's a bad idea.
Speaker 1: So these legitimate concerns, legitimate disagreements that would otherwise be
Speaker 1: the result of normal give and take, they get ramped
Speaker 1: up to eleven that the city.
Speaker 2: Is, Oh, you're not doing enough for housing.
Speaker 1: No one can do enough for housing under the conditions
Speaker 1: that California sets when we return. My continued frustration with
Speaker 1: the Trump and Dvance campaign and messaging on abortion. That's
Speaker 1: next on the John Girardi Show. I gotta confess I'm
Speaker 1: getting more and more down in the dumps about this election,
Speaker 1: not only my conviction that Kamala Harris can win, but
Speaker 1: also the messaging from the Trump Vance camp about abortion.
Speaker 1: On one of the weekend shows, Vance said that Trump
Speaker 1: would not sign any kind of national abortion prohibition that
Speaker 1: came across his desk. Trump tweets out or truth socials out, whatever,
Speaker 1: that his administration will be great for women and their
Speaker 1: reproductive rights, reproductive rights, and now we're using the euphemism
Speaker 1: of the pro abortion side.
Speaker 2: All I want to.
Speaker 1: Hear from them is one statement, one statement that we'll
Speaker 1: appoint the same kinds of judges we had did did
Speaker 1: in the first Trump administration, and we will cut off
Speaker 1: federal abortion funding in the ways we did in the
Speaker 1: first Trump administration. That's all I want to hear, and
Speaker 1: they're not giving it to me. I'm really afraid of
Speaker 1: the direction the Republican Party is going. I'm really afraid,
Speaker 1: and I think so. Some people are gonna just have
Speaker 1: faith in Trump that he's gonna do the right thing
Speaker 1: when he comes into office. Some pro life is doing that,
Speaker 1: and I really think the pro life movement deserves a
Speaker 1: little more than this. It's really frustrating. That'll do it,
Speaker 1: John Girardi Show, See you next time on Power Talk.