A central California mayor’s alleged texts to a number of heads of the district revealed he pressured trustees to not oppose his multi-million greenback growth challenge.
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer allegedly threatened varied Fresno Unified faculty board trustees — the third largest faculty board within the state — that he would wade in on faculty insurance policies in the event that they had been to oppose his newest growth challenge, in keeping with blackmail textual content messages obtained by Fresnoland.
The challenge, SEDA, which stands for the Southeast Improvement Space, encompasses 9,000 acres in southeast Fresno, south of town of Clovis.
SEDA is Dyer’s plan “to create extra housing provide inside full, walkable communities in a fiscally sustainable, environmentally sound, climate-friendly and equitable method.”
The district’s personal finance staff has estimated SEDA may value $200 million a yr and result in the closure of almost a dozen colleges, to not point out power layoffs.
Textual content messages present that Dyer wished trustees to maintain quiet concerning the large value of SEDA hours earlier than the college board was to vote on a decision concerning the mega challenge that ended up shelving the matter and taking it out of the fingers of Fresno Superintendent Misty Her.
The identical message was despatched out to not less than 4 trustees, the report famous. These included Trustee Andy Levine, Claudia Cazare, Genoveva Islas and Valerie Davis.
“It’s my hope that FUSD doesn’t take a place and oppose SEDA growth. That will open the door for the mayor to start out partaking on instructional points which I’ve prevented prior to now when media ask for my opinion,” the message from Dyer learn. “I’ve all the time taken the excessive highway and supported board positions.”
One textual content message from Levine confirmed that he thought it was essential to “deal with the issues” that he and others had about what affect SEDA would have on the group.
In response, Dyer wrote that “Let me be clear. If the FUSD takes a proper place towards SEDA the connection between town and FUSD will likely be broken no means round it.”
In a message between Islas and Dyer, she mentioned she “respectfully” disagreed along with his view concerning the board taking on a place and wrote that “SEDA, as written, can be detrimental to our district.”
Dyer responded, “Unhappy to see for positive.”
The outlet famous that it’s unclear who else acquired the messages, as not all the members maintain their texts.
However hours after Dyer’s message went out, trustees Cazares, Susan Wittrup, Keshia Thomas, and Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas voted to desk the decision indefinitely. It was a 4-3 vote among the many board of trustee members.
The results of that ended up blocking Her from with the ability to have a say on the challenge publicly or permit an evaluation from her workplace from getting used which warned of “redistributing households inside a area as a substitute of producing web inhabitants progress, leading to declining enrollment in long-standing neighborhood colleges.”
Dyer informed the outlet that the messages weren’t “supposed to be a risk.”
“I worded it in a means as a pleasant reminder,” Dyer mentioned. “Once we begin, as authorities entities, making feedback about one another’s operations, all it does is create a divide. And the very last thing we want in authorities immediately is a divide.”
Trustee Islas mentioned those that voted to desk the difficulty have political ambitions of their very own and advised they wished to remain on the mayor’s good facet.
“Sadly,” Islas mentioned, “they’re promoting out our youngsters and our district for that.”
The California Submit reached out to Mayor Dyer’s workplace and Superintendent Her for additional remark.
