A central California mayor’s alleged texts to several heads of the district revealed he pressured trustees not to oppose his multi-million dollar development project.
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer allegedly threatened various Fresno Unified school board trustees — the third largest school board in the state — that he would wade in on school policies if they were to oppose his latest development project, according to blackmail text messages obtained by Fresnoland.
The project, SEDA, which stands for the Southeast Development Area, encompasses 9,000 acres in southeast Fresno, south of the city of Clovis.
SEDA is Dyer’s plan “to create more housing supply within complete, walkable communities in a fiscally sustainable, environmentally sound, climate-friendly and equitable manner.”
The district’s own finance team has estimated SEDA could cost $200 million a year and lead to the closure of nearly a dozen schools, not to mention force layoffs.
Text messages show that Dyer wanted trustees to keep quiet about the massive cost of SEDA hours before the school board was to vote on a resolution about the mega project that ended up shelving the matter and taking it out of the hands of Fresno Superintendent Misty Her.
The same message was sent out to at least four trustees, the report noted. Those included Trustee Andy Levine, Claudia Cazare, Genoveva Islas and Valerie Davis.
“It is my hope that FUSD does not take a position and oppose SEDA development. That would open the door for the mayor to start engaging on educational issues which I have avoided in the past when media ask for my opinion,” the message from Dyer read. “I have always taken the high road and supported board positions.”
One text message from Levine showed that he thought it was important to “address the concerns” that he and others had about what impact SEDA would have on the community.
In response, Dyer wrote that “Let me be clear. If the FUSD takes a formal position against SEDA the relationship between the city and FUSD will be damaged no way around it.”
In a message between Islas and Dyer, she said she “respectfully” disagreed with his view about the board taking up a position and wrote that “SEDA, as written, would be detrimental to our district.”
The outlet noted that it is unclear who else got the messages, as not all of the members keep their texts.
But hours after Dyer’s message went out, trustees Cazares, Susan Wittrup, Keshia Thomas, and Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas voted to table the resolution indefinitely. It was a 4-3 vote among the board of trustee members.
The result of that ended up blocking Her from being able to have a say on the project publicly or allow an assessment from her office from being used which warned of “redistributing families within a region instead of generating net population growth, resulting in declining enrollment in long-standing neighborhood schools.”
Dyer told the outlet that the messages were not “intended to be a threat.”
“I worded it in a way as a friendly reminder,” Dyer said. “When we start, as government entities, making comments about each other’s operations, all it does is create a divide. And the last thing we need in government today is a divide.”
Trustee Islas said those who voted to table the issue have political ambitions of their own and suggested they wanted to stay on the mayor’s good side.
“Unfortunately,” Islas said, “they’re selling out our kids and our district for that.”
The California Post reached out to Mayor Dyer’s office and Superintendent Her for further comment.
