That first summer, Celedon asked her youth-engagement group to set up an evening workshop with Southside teenagers. Meet at the downtown library and bring enough Hmong sausage and rice to feed 40. Get the kids to tell you about community needs from their vantage. And keep it fun. “It got off to a slow start,” Celedon recalled. “And then a 13-year-old Latina raises her hand and asks, ‘Why aren’t you talking about parks?’ And the whole room of kids lights up. ‘Yeah, dude. Parks,’ another said. ‘They suck.’”
And that’s how a citywide initiative called Measure P began. The kids visited Southside playgrounds and parks and took inventory. Broken restrooms, broken basketball hoops, broken recreation programs. Park funding in Fresno, never flush, had been slashed by 53 percent. Builders were resistant to paying a citywide park fee. National rankings of urban green space found that of the 100 largest cities in the United States, Fresno sat at the very bottom. Its parks-to-residents ratio was so pitiful, one study found, that street medians were being counted as green space.
With the backing of the former mayor Ashley Swearengin, who led the region’s largest community philanthropic foundation, Celedon undertook a signature drive to qualify Measure P for the ballot. If passed, the sales tax would raise roughly $1 billion over the next 30 years for parks and arts.
Dyer, who was police chief at the time, loudly opposed it. So did Lee Brand, who was then the mayor; the local Chamber of Commerce; and patriarchs of the Assemi family, the city’s most influential farmers and home builders. The streets weren’t safe, they argued. The only sales tax Fresno should be entertaining was one to fund more cops and firefighters.
The argument struck Celedon and Garibay as absurd. Parks and arts gave kids a way not to fall into gangs. Police and fire already commanded a lion’s share of the city’s general fund. During the talks, police and fire laid down an ultimatum, demanding 50 percent of Measure P’s funds. “We tried to negotiate, but they wouldn’t budge,” Celedon said. “So we told them to go to hell.”
The campaign unearthed such racism that Black youths canvassing the Northside for Measure P were threatened. “You’re knocking on the wrong door,” homeowners told them. If they cared about their safety, they’d hurry back to “their side of town.” Celedon had to dispatch her white friends to gather signatures on the Northside.
Measure P landed on the 2018 ballot. Reflecting the city’s chasm, it received 52 percent of the vote. Sales-tax measures almost always require a two-thirds vote. Celedon’s legal counsel argued that because Measure P was initiated by citizens and not elected officials, only a simple majority was needed. An appellate court agreed. Measure P, in its first year alone, raised $42 million. “Mayor Dyer couldn’t be more happy,” Celedon said, noting his about-face. “The Latino council members who don’t always support our efforts are taking a victory lap.”