CLEAN SWEEP
by kelly borkert

Bay Area Indymedia
Friday Jan 29th, 2010 7:00 AM

The City of Fresno uses questionable methods to remove homeless
residents from a barren lot

Thursday, January 28th, 2010 marked a dark day of particular
significance in the struggle for human rights in Fresno California.

After a series of attempts to remove homeless residents from a barren
lot at the corner of Ventura and F St. in downtown Fresno, officials
from the City of Fresno faced bold opposition from committed residents
when a cleanup was ordered under penal code violations and questionably
obtained complaints of trespass. Administration officials resorted to
tactics including bribery (offering housing vouchers and promises of
temporary housing to people otherwise faced with arrest or vagrancy)
and outright deception in order to facilitate the removal and to
circumvent the planned civil disobedience of affected citizens and
in response to their failed, abandoned attempt at seeking a Temporary
Restraining Order in the Fresno County courtroom of Judge Adolfo Corona
the previous day. Not overly famous for respecting the constitutinal
requirements of due process, the City of Fresno may now soon be better
known for their backdoor violations of verbal agreements entered into
with people in desperate straits.

The morning after the City of Fresno dismissed its own request for
a TRO, the now displaced residents stood their ground, braced for
arrest. City officials, including Police Chief Dyer, who appeared
to be negotiating for the city left the scene for a period of time
to meet and discuss their options. Upon return they requested the
residents do two things, relocate their tents off the sidewalk areas
and move inward on the lot 37 feet to clear a particular parcel. At
that point it appeared they would be permitted to stay in the more
restricted zone, but by the afternoon, reports were printed in the
Fresno Bee that all had vacated voluntarily, many relocating to an
area at Mono and G St.

Among the many facets left uncovered by Bee reporters were the current
conditions at the F St encampment. After previous complaints were
raised by the City as they prepared to enforce health code violations
by removing residents and their belongings several weeks ago, private
parties stepped in to provide portable toilets and trash containers.

The very suggestion made by Judge Corona towards the City attorneys
in the first hearing, whereupon the City of Fresno filed for a TRO
to continue the process they had initially intended to perform on
December 16, 2009. Because the ownership of this property was in
question, and because legal representation made it clear to the city
that they stood on shaky ground, the initial cleanup was postponed.

What the Bee and presumably other media might accidentally overlook
is how conditions transformed in the campsite once toilets and trash
containers were provided. The residents successfully removed thousands
of pounds of waste, and the grounds were nearly immaculate when the
City moved in again.

Other aspects falling through the media’s cracks in their coverage
are the questionable ownership claims the City justified their
actions upon. While they seemingly knew the identity of one owner of a
parcel, they instead focused their more public claims on tenuous ones,
involving the two out of town surviving heirs of a small parcel split
six ways. Both under threat of the expense of a city initiated fence
and cleanup, which the City claimed would be borne by property owners.

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As complicated as that is, the more interesting facts lie in the
identity of the predominantly undisclosed owner of another parcel,
Tom Richards, who is said to be both a developer and chairperson
of the Committee to end Homelessness. The sticky facts of this may
elude the keen eye of the Fresno Bee, but certainly not those of more
interested parties.

Further developments throughout the day reportedly involved a series of
evictions as the City pursued the displaced residents from location to
location, informing them of complaints and insisting they move again
and again. As the rights of homeless citizens of Fresno usually are
considerably less than those of other citizens as measured in City of
Fresno concern for their safety and well being, the questions arise,
would homed citizens of Fresno express the same disregard and disdain
if these were Haitian refugees?

Would the response of the City of Fresno be the same if these were
Armenians fleeing Turkish genocide?

Will the numerous wealthy churches such as The People’s Church and
Northwest Church continue their silence and remain uninvolved as they
pass their collection plates around every service, depositing the
coins, paper money and tithings into their vaults for holier causes
than the service of the poorest of those among us?

Will the Fresno Bee continue to provide lip service for the City of
Fresno without a stitch of question? The answers to these questions
are uncertain, but based on recent history, no positive developments
are likely in store on these fronts, for the homeless and concerned
citizens of Fresno.