Pastor Darrell Jones leads southwest Fresno’s 110-member congregation at Bethel Church of Christ Holiness USA. The mainly African American congregation has been growing consistently for the past few years. Membership increase has led Pastor Jones and his leadership team to build an on-site communal space to host Sunday school children’s classes, youth activities, church special events and community food distributions.

COVID-19 stalls church project
“The whole project was thought up ten years ago. The actual permitting and coordination with the city and PG&E happened right before COVID-19. At that time, we needed the building to be inspected and signed off. We paid for electrical and gas in advanced, but COVID interrupted the process,” said Jones.

With all city, gas and electricity fees paid, Jones anticipated a smooth and quick permitting process. That was not the case.

With statewide interruptions after COVID-19 public health emergency orders, Pastor Jones and his team faced additional hurdles in the permitting process. Inconsistent office hours and staffing changes during the telework period further exasperated the backlog. Jones recalled an email from fellow southwest Fresno Pastor BT Lewis stating he was working with the City of Fresno and decided to reach out.

OCA internal city advocacy
“Pastor Jones shared Bethel Church’s struggle advancing their on-site building project. Now working with the city, I was able to advocate internally,” said Pastor BT Lewis. Lewis had been hired as the Black Indigenous People of Color or BIPOC liaison in the city’s PARCS department and was partnering with new Office of Community Affairs on several outreach activities. Lewis reached out to Marie Chatman, senior administrative clerk in the City’s Planning Department for assistance.

Through her knowledge and internal connections, Chatman secured a planning department inspector who went out to the property and provided guidance—despite the church’s residential zoning designation. Inspectors are almost exclusively deployed to commercial planning projects.

“Our inspectors were able to go out and give Pastor Jones advice,” said Chatman. The advice provided by the city inspector helped Bethel Church focus on pending electrical issues that also required PG&E intervention.

Planning and permitting process success
Chatman’s assistance went further. The nearly two-year delay in the permitting process resulted in additional late fees and charges that Chatman successfully sought to waive.

The permit and construction process has kept moving since Pastor Lewis’ intervention on behalf of Bethel Church of Christ Holiness USA. The church’s community building will open its doors to the neighborhood and congregation in early July 2022.

Pastor Jones credits Lewis’ assistance in the project’s positive outcome. “If it weren’t for Pastor Lewis’ intervention, we would still be standing here. Without an advocate for the community and families that are in need, things wouldn’t move forward. We have an advocate now who is going to be a voice for us,” said Jones.

For assistance to Fresno’s BIPOC communities, you can reach Pastor BT Lewis at [email protected].

Office of Community Affairs team members attend faith leaders’ press conference urging Fresno residents to participate in city-wide special offering in their churches benefitting on-the-ground humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. (Photographed left to right: Alma Martinez, OCA Immigrant Liaison; Mykhaylo Skitsak, Ukrainian Fresno resident and Pastor BT Lewis, PARCS Liaison and OCA partner serving BIPOC communities).

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As fighting broke out in Ukraine and millions in the country experienced the war’s effects, Fresno residents, especially those from the war-ravaged country, worried for their fellow countrymen. Mykhaylo Skitsak was one of them. Skitsak, a registered nurse at Fresno’s Community Regional Medical Center hospital, has called Fresno home since arriving from Ukraine 15 years ago.

Seeing his fellow Ukrainians’ suffering was Skitsak’s biggest motivator to mobilize aid efforts. “People were fleeing and traveling with barely anything, leaving everything behind and crossing borders to other countries,” said Skitsak.

City of Fresno OCA assisting aid calls
The concern for Ukrainians was felt among many Fresnans including City Hall. On March 1, Mayor Jerry Dyer and city councilmembers raised the Ukrainian flag on Eaton Plaza to show the city’s solidarity with suffering Ukrainians.

“In Fresno, we saw the Ukrainian suffering and wanted to show our solidarity. We want residents know we stand ready to assist our Ukrainian community through our Office of Community Affairs,” said Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer. The newly formed Office of Community Affairs, a department within the Mayor’s office, serves as a bridge to Fresno’s diverse groups and available resources in city hall and the greater community.

Skitsak reached out to the City’s Office of Community Affairs (OCA) for aid to the conflict area. Pastor Booker T. Lewis, Fresno PARCS outreach liaison teamed up with the OCA to call the faith community into action. Lewis leads southwest Fresno’s Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church and serves in several Fresno-area faith collaboratives.

OCA calls on the faith community to help
Lewis reached out to a small group of faith leaders, some who were already sending financial aid to Ukraine. The group quickly organized a voluntary campaign to raise special offerings at their respective houses of worship for on-the-ground humanitarian aid to Ukraine. “The group was very interested in ensuring that the aid get there fast. The fastest way was through financial contributions,” shared Lewis.

Pastor Jim Franklin, Senior Pastor at Cornerstone Church and one of the original campaign organizers, felt the urgency to help. “We have always served our community to meet needs here. So, when we saw the need internationally, we wanted to serve,” said Franklin.

To ensure a broad community campaign, Lewis also enlisted the Mayor’s Faith-based Partnership Cabinet, led by Dr. Randy White. Cabinet membership includes faith leaders from 26 Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, LDS, and Buddhist faiths.

“Organizations of faith have a responsibility when there is suffering in the world. We felt we had a moral obligation to respond to that suffering,” said White, who enlisted more than a dozen additional faith leaders to join the funding drive.

The special city-wide campaign ran from March 17 to April 3 and enlisted the participation of over a dozen houses of worship.

City-wide item collection drive for Ukraine
The pressing needs faced by Ukrainians fleeing their worn-torn country to neighboring Poland weighed heavily on Skitsak. He decided to jump into action once again and contacted a Ukrainian organization in Sacramento, CA who had already successfully sent a shipment of vital necessities to the Ukraine-Poland border zone.

Skitsak assembled a group of Fresno Ukrainians to welcome donated food, medical, self-care and clothing items to Cornerstone Church’s downtown warehouse. Over a six-day span in early April, the campaign collected and packed over 200 boxes of vital emergency aid that were sent to Sacramento and shipped via shipping container to Ukraine.

Skitsak shared his appreciation to the Office of Community Affairs for facilitating connections to aid newly arrived Ukrainians in Fresno. “The office was the place we could turn to to direct our needs and seek out help. The office also connected us to so many resources that were available from the community as a whole—from food banks to churches to non-profit organizations that deal with immigrants. That helped a lot,” shared Skitsak.

OCA connections to Ukrainian aid
The Office of Community Affairs is consistently connecting residents inquiring about aiding Ukraine. The OCA provides residents with information on social, health and legal aid services. For information and connections for Ukrainian arrivals to Fresno, contact the OCA’s Immigrant Affairs Liaison at (559) 621-7923.

The annual Hmong New Year celebration returned to Fresno this past December following a one-year, COVID-pandemic hiatus. More than 44,000 visitors – including Hmong, Laotian, and Vietnamese – attended the four-day event at Fresno’s fairgrounds. Prior to COVID-19, the Hmong New Year opened its doors to more than 120,000 visitors over seven days.

The event allowed the Office of Community Affairs’ Asian Pacific Islander liaison, Sandra Lee, to introduce herself – and her new role – to the community. “It was great to see members of community enjoying our Hmong New Year. The event was a great opportunity to speak to business leaders, elders and families about my role and hear their concerns,” Lee said.

Hmong New Year tradition
The Hmong Cultural New Year Celebration organization hosts Fresno’s Hmong New Year. Mitch Herr, the organization’s president, says that the celebration is among the most important in the nation. “Fresno’s Hmong New Year is among the largest in the U.S. and I believe in the world.” Herr added that over the event’s 40-year history, it has attracted people from all over the country and world.

The Hmong New Year is observed as the time when young and old come together to celebrate the annual end of the harvest season. Community members convene to share traditional food, music, and dance. The event is also a place where young people take part in traditional courtships, which include a customary ball toss where an interested suitor tosses a ball to a young girl or man and, if it is returned, dating begins.

Herr added that the annual celebration here in the U.S. serves to preserve the Hmong culture. “The Hmong New Year celebration is a way to pass down our traditions from generation to generation,” Herr said.

Hmong community rooted in Fresno
According to Herr, in the 70s and early 80s, the Hmong who arrived in Fresno saw the Valley’s rich agricultural land as a place to raise their families and continue farming. Now, he shared, the sons, daughters and grandchildren of those original arrivals are working professionals. “Our elders see education as the key to success and many of us in my generation are professionals. We are hard-working people and contribute to Fresno’s success,” said Herr.

Lee, Fresno’s Office of Community Affairs API Liaison, agrees. “The Hmong community has made Fresno their home for over 40 years and is part of the fabric of Fresno. We have added to the city’s cultural richness and economic growth. Our community continues striving for a better quality of life. We are your neighbors, classmates, colleagues and friends,” Lee said.

Fresno’s Office of Community Affairs (OCA) was founded in October 2021. The OCA’s goal is to engage all Fresno community members by serving as the City’s liaison to key constituent groups, associations, multicultural and immigrant populations, faith-based, civic, human service, and others including community benefit organizations. The OCA is a division of the Mayor’s Office, under the oversight of Deputy Mayor Matthew Grundy.

OCA hires diverse leaders
Fresno’s cultural richness was recently recognized by U.S. News & World Report, ranking it the nation’s ninth most racially diverse city. Oftentimes, however, these populations fear and distrust government. To ensure the city’s diverse populations have a trustworthy representative that listens to their needs, speaks their language, and can connect them to municipal and community resources, the OCA office hired four liaisons. OCA liaisons represent the following communities:

• Asian Pacific Islander
• Asian-Indian
• Black, Indigenous and People of Color
• Immigrant and Latino

Sandra Lee, OCA liaison to the city’s Asian Pacific Islander (API) residents, has worked for social service agencies and local non-profit The Fresno Center for New Americans, now known as The Fresno Center. While at The Fresno Center, Lee focused on housing and workforce connections for Hmong refugees resettling in Fresno.

The API liaison position was established in response to a growing concern over pandemic-fueled hate crimes targeting Asian communities nationwide. To counter potential violence and provide a voice for these communities, the City Council passed a resolution establishing a permanent API ombudsman post. In Fresno, the API community includes Hmong, Laotian, Cambodian, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean and Japanese groups, among others.

Lee is drawing from her previous firsthand knowledge when assisting API residents, “Our community is very diverse with many nationalities under the API umbrella. We tend to lean towards organizations where we feel understood. That is why it is so important to have a person that looks like us that we can turn to when we need help.”

Liaisons understand community barriers
Harjinder “JR” Saini represents the Asian Indian community. Sinai has extensive experience working in the private sector and is a former business owner. He volunteers at the local gurdwara, where he listens and connects with Sikh residents to learn about their needs.

“Members of our community are business owners, farmers and professionals in our city. Their families have needs for their young people and seniors,” Sinai shared. “Many times, these needs are addressed from within the community without outside help, which may delay the help. With the OCA, the barriers that existed will no longer be an obstacle.”

According to the American Community Survey, Fresno is also home to more than 60,000 foreign-born residents. The OCA’s immigrant and Latino liaison, Alma Martinez, is tasked with serving these communities. In her prior role as a journalist and talk show host at Radio Bilingue, a local non-profit radio station with national reach, Martinez focused on immigrant issues and civic participation.

Trust is essential for communities to come forth and seek aid. Negative national political discourse around immigrants has dissuaded many from seeking help. “Being an immigrant myself, I understand the hardships and barriers families face. Making government accessible to them through a representative that looks like them and speaks their language is key to building trust,” Martinez said.

OCA teams up with PARCS to serve the BIPOC community
The OCA partnered with Fresno Parks, After School, Recreation and Community Services (PARCS) department to outreach and serve the city’s Black and Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) communities. PARCS hired longtime southwest Fresno resident and Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church Senior Pastor, Booker T. Lewis to lead outreach efforts in southwest Fresno. Lewis has extensive community engagement, advocacy, intervention, and mediation experience. He will focus on learning up close about the recreational needs of the community. He will also partner with the OCA to build a platform unifying people who differ in race, religion, culture, denomination, economics, politics, and other areas.

Lewis shared his approach to this new role, “As a community, we all have a responsibility to do good toward one another, to strive for absolute and purest reflection of justice, to fairly address oppressive situations and systems, to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves and defend those who cannot defend themselves.”

Lewis will not only focus on community resource connections, but he will also assist in outreach and engagement activities for the city’s Parks, After School, Recreation and Community Services Department.

Mayor’s commitment to Fresno’s diverse communities
The OCA upholds Mayor Dyer’s One Fresno vision of an inclusive city, responsive to all residents. “These leaders represent the communities that make up the cultural richness of our city. Their role is to serve as bridge builders, ensuring that all city hall and community resources are accessible to the respective communities they serve. Our OCA liaisons hold up our one Fresno promise,” Mayor Dyer said.

The Office of Community Affairs is a permanent department in the city mayor’s office. To learn about the OCA, please visit: https://www.fresno.gov/mayor/office-of-community-affairs/

The Kings Canyon/Ventura corridor is one of Fresno’s major retail and transportation hubs. Recently, the city Planning and Development Department’s Long Range Planning Division began working with the urban design firm, Citythinkers. The city’s Long Range Planning team and Citythinkers joined efforts to conduct a study on achieving high-density, mixed-use, walkable development around Fresno’s FAX ‘Q’ stations. The Kings Canyon Corridor Transit-Oriented Development (KCCTOD) study not only analyzes market conditions and land use, but also focuses on community outreach.

The KCCTOD project has engaged more than 500 residents seeking their opinions on services, amenities, improvements, and potential changes they’d like to see to optimize corridor use. The feedback received will be used to inform the two final station area plans and concepts that can be implemented by private developers.

New planning balances economic and environmental factors
The transit-oriented development (TOD) project along Fresno’s Kings Canyon/Ventura corridor is part of a larger movement in planning that aims to maximize public transportation use, reduce automobile dependency, and encourage walkable cities. TOD achieves its main goals by offering a mix of uses in a pedestrian-friendly environment. TOD also helps increase housing availability and business growth, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

According to Sophia Pagoulatos, planning manager for the city’s Planning and Development Department, the effective implementation of transit-oriented development along Kings Canyon is promising. “Transit-oriented development has the potential to bring community-focused benefits to Kings Canyon and Ventura such as housing, strong local businesses, and environmental sustainability.”

Diverse community engagement
To ensure community members who live, work, and play along Kings Canyon had a chance to provide feedback on the corridor’s future, the Long Range planning team hosted over half a dozen community workshops, community events, and meetings held both in-person and via virtual platforms. The division has engaged over 500 community members through outreach events, workshops and surveys.

At the workshops, resident participants were asked to imagine a city that maximized its use of public transportation. Residents designed their vision for Kings Canyon with more amenities, housing, and retail options. Reimagined design options were broad and could include multi-family housing, supermarkets, libraries, community centers, pools, and plazas – all within walking distance to public transportation.

Nataly Barajas, 22, is a recent college graduate working towards an associate degree at Fresno City College and lives close to Kings Canyon. Barajas rides the Fresno FAX bus to and from classes. She participated in an in-person KCCTOD workshop and shared her vision for the corridor’s future. Nataly’s vision includes easy access to libraries and bookstores.

Barajas felt her input as a Fresno youth was important. “Oftentimes youth are left out of the conversation when involving city issues in general. It’s incredibly important to participate because youth are the future of Fresno,” said Barajas.

In May, Long Range Planning and the Office of Community Affairs (OCA) joined efforts on targeted outreach to Asian Pacific Islander, Asian Indian, Black Indigenous Persons of Color, Immigrant and Latino residents in Southeast Fresno. The OCA advised Long Range Planning on flyer language and design, and targeted community outreach strategies. The OCA also invited department staff to participate on two online interviews in English and Spanish informing the community about TOD.

According to Pagoulatos, the OCA’s outreach helped the department significantly increase the project’s outreach. “The OCA was a critical partner in connecting community members to the KCCTOD study. Thanks to their help, staff was able to double workshop attendance in a matter of five weeks,” said Pagoulatos.

More opportunities for TOD community input
To learn more about the KCCTOD study, please visit www.fresno.gov/KCCTOD. To request a KCCTOD study presentation or to provide input, please email [email protected] or call (559) 621-8038.