Tag: yosemite ranch

Patio takeover of trail delayed, for now

The Bee has the some good news about last nights planning meeting concerning the proposed expansion of a restaurant onto the right-of-way of the Sugar Pine Trail.

Fresno’s planning commission on Wednesday rejected a proposal to allow a northeast Fresno restaurant to put a patio into part of the Sugar Pine Trail — but said the restaurant owner could return with a new proposal.

In rejecting the proposal by Yosemite Ranch owner David Fansler, commissioners asked the City Council to clarify when and how the city should allow shared use of public spaces.

Fresno Bee

As I wasn’t at the meeting, it’s hard to get the full tone of the message, but the news is mostly positive. At least for now, there will be no takeover of the trail. Click to read more!

Yosemite Ranch’s unbelievable flyer

The last portion of this post has been updated.

As part of their attempt to privatize public space in an unprecedented land-grab, Yosemite Ranch is going all out to bus supporters to the planning meeting, a meeting almost nobody would have known about had it not been for Bill McEwen’s column in the Bee.

They’ve posted a flier on their facebook page which is quite unbelievable.

Let’s ignore for a second the mistakes in spelling and grammar and such (an elipses made of commas, really?) and focus on the message.

Photobucket

-They’ve been “fighting the fight” for two years, but who were they fighting? The process was done in secret and not made public until recently. Must have been quite the fight. Click to read more!

Rail-trail land grab

In his Sunday column in the Fresno Bee, Bill McEwen informs us of a plan by a restaurant owner to grab some of the right-of-way used by the Fresno-Clovis rail trail and convert it to private restaurant space.

While the land-grab wouldn’t decrease the size of the currently paved path, it would take a large portion of the publicly held land, and so block any future improvements, including something in the far-future, like a rail-transit line. It would also remove mature vegetation which makes the path comfortable to use.

Most importantly, it would take public land, held by the city and useable by all, and privatize it. Walls would be built and only paying customers would have access during business hours. If the business were to fail, then nobody would have access to the walled off section. Click to read more!