Hmong community garden to be demolished, police substation to be built in it's place

by Abe

Tue, Oct 7, 2008 4:42PM

For the last 13 years a group of Hmong immigrants have been cultivating 4.5 acres in SE Fresno. The city is no planning on tearing it down and building a police substation.

In SE Fresno on Belmont there is a community garden that has been
operated by Hmong immigrants for the last 13 years. I was out there
yesterday, it's amazing and obviously has had a lot of work put into it.
But as of right now the city is planning on tearing it down on Nov. 1
and building a police station.

Here's the initial article

http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/905324.html

Here's a very excellent video that goes with it:

http://videos.fresnobee.com/vmix_hosted_apps/p/media?id=2224196&item_index=3&all=1&sort=NULL

Many of us are very upset by this and want to do something to try and
stop this. There were 4 of us at today's City Council meeting, the
advice given to us by Council member Perea was that we need to have as many people as
possible e-mail and write letters to the council to get this put on next
weeks agenda. Then we need to get as many people down there as possible
in support of this garden.

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§any more info?

by concerned

Tue, Oct 7, 2008 10:23PM

Any more information on events coming up regarding this? City Council meetings or anything?

What would the folks involved directly with the garden like to see happen?

It's so typical that they will build a police station over a community garden. This is potentially a great issue to organize around.

My immediate questions to the police/developers would be... why there at that location? Are there not any other lots in the general area that were considered for this project? Why this spot and not them? That the property owner was allowing the space used as a community garden might mean that he wasn't expecting to do anything with the property and thus willing to offer it cheaper than others lots in the area. How much cheaper? Where is the money for the new police station coming from? How much $$$ exactly?

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§update

by Abe

Fri, Oct 10, 2008 10:43PM

There is a planning meeting on Saturday 10/11 @4pm @ cafe corazon in the fulton mall
We are planning for the October 21st council meeting. 3 of us spoke at the last council meeting and Council member Perea told us that we should get people from the community to email and call the council members about getting on the next agenda. So that's what we've been doing. I think at this point we have several of us signed up to be officially on the agenda and then we'll flood the open time.
This has been voted on twice, it was voted down 4-3 both times because nobody knew about it and the few who did were the immigrants and many don't speak english and didn't understand.
There was a prior spot chosen for the police station, but since the community garden is on park land the city could get the land for basically free. There had been one attempt to turn the garden, along with the vacant fields next to it, into a memorial park but they told Fresno Metro Ministries (a small non-profit) that they had to come up with $4 million which is a little beyond their power.
The primary goal of this action is to save the Hmong garden, we are also pushing for the council to open dialogue with different community groups about creating policies which protect and promote community gardens. Fresno has one of the highest poverty rates around, community gardens are an excellent aid to this and the city of Fresno needs to realize that and work with community gardeners rather than against them.

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§update

by Abe

Mon, Oct 13, 2008 12:26PM

A new event for your calendar:

Community Forum – Plans for the Hmong community garden

Everyone invited

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

6:00 PM

Faith Community Religious Facility

1495 N. Chestnut Ave. (Between Olive & McKinley)

Fresno, CA 93703

Good news! Last night (Saturday), Summer Vue and Marina Yang brought the question of saving the Hmong community garden to the Hmong listeners of KBIF 900 AM radio. After introductory remarks, they opened the lines for call-ins. They had non-stop listener comments from 10:30 PM – 12:30 AM. The callers were 99% in favor of saving the garden. Two of the gardeners called in.

Summer scheduled an open forum for this Wednesday to discuss the future of the Hmong community garden. Everyone is invited – the Hmong community and the community at large. Fresno City council members and Fresno Park and Recreation Department Director, Randall Cooper, will receive personal invitations.

We will continue with all other plans and add this event.

Chuck McNally has created a Yahoo! Group for communication among the Save the Hmong Community Garden organizers. If you want to be added to the list email him mothernight [at] rocketmail.com.

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