Forum: where is Fresno headed?

By Laban Pelz
The Collegian

Local city and business leaders met with several hundred Fresno area residents at the Satellite Student Union Wednesday night to discuss Fresno’s future as a place for people to live and work.

“American Jobs: A National Conversation” is a traveling town hall meeting, which has visited San Antonio, Baltimore, Cleveland and Baton Rouge before making its way to Fresno last night. These cities were picked because all are in “major transformations,” said a representative from one of the two nonprofit groups sponsoring the event.

Fresno mayor Alan Autry and Pelco president and CEO David McDonald were two of a five-person panel that answered questions from CNN’s Mark Sesno about the direction in which Fresno is headed.

The questions that panelists, the audience and people of Fresno all answered Wednesday were “What is a good job?” “How do we get good jobs?” and “How can we keep the jobs we have?”

Asked what is most important in a job, 45 percent of the audience said it is the interest and challenge of the work. Twenty-seven percent said wages are most important and 10 percent felt long-term job security tops the list.
“A good job is one you feel good about having,” Autry said. “It’s any job that benefits society, and it’s hard to find one that doesn’t. It’s not measured by the paycheck.”

Before Wednesday’s meeting a sample of Fresno residents was asked the same questions.

Sesno said nearly a third of those polled believe the paycheck was the most important part of a job.

Only 6 percent agreed with the SSU audience that job fulfillment is the most significant part of working.
Autry said healthcare is the second-most important part of having a job, while 5 percent of the audience said it is the most important.

Job security was an issue for the panel as well, and Frederick Ruiz, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Ruiz Foods, said while it’s important “to work for a company that appreciates the value of people, and where employees can share in the growth of the company,” there is no such thing as job security.

The meeting soon switched from discussing the demand for work to the demand for workers.

One audience member said he had come back to Fresno after living in San Jose to find his experience working in start-up companies was not needed. He said a good job is “one that matches its skill set with a person’s skills.”

Ruiz said he has had $60-90,000 jobs available he wasn’t able to fill.

“Young workers come in, and they’re uneducated, immature,” he said. “I don’t have time to train them.”

Autry said he is aware of this, saying he has received information from a poll group saying new Fresno-area workers can’t read or do math at a seventh grade level.

In response Fresno County superintendent of schools Pete Mehas stood from his front-row seat in the audience. He said parents aren’t doing their job.

“Parents call to ask why their children aren’t graduating, and it’s because they didn’t show up,” Mehas said. “They say the exit exams are discriminatory. Of course they are: they’re discriminatory based on knowledge.”

Nearly half of the audience said the biggest problem for job seekers in Fresno is many jobs require more experience or education than many people have.

Competition and poor pay received 24 and 28 percent of the vote, respectively, as the biggest problems for job hunters. Sesno said those polled in Fresno felt job training and education are the most important things businesses in the area can do.

Talk of the Fresno job and worker market raised concerns of competition with other regions in the U.S. and with other countries.

The audience generally said it believes overseas companies are more of a danger than an opportunity, while Ruiz said Fresno shouldn’t look at the rest of the world as a threat, “but we must remain competitive,” he said.

McDonald said Pelco is selling “a lot” to China.

Competition between Fresno and other regions was also looked at. Many audience members said Fresno jobs simply don’t pay enough.

Fresno State senior Carmetra Gillam said she would move to Houston if work in Fresno doesn’t support her.

Sesno said 69 percent of young people polled in Fresno said they would move to another city for a better job. Fifty-six percent of older residents polled said they would do the same.

The panelists in business said their companies are constantly receiving invitations to move to other cities in other states.

“Any business in California gets this mail every day,” McDonald said.

Much of the discussion after this was about Fresno striking a balance between agriculture and manufacturing, while attracting new businesses.

Panelist Carol Chandler, a partner in Chandler Farms LP, said Fresno must keep agricultural land from being taken by industry.

“We need to keep our trees, our open space,” Chandler said. “Once ag land is paved over its gone.”
Other audience members favored more building in Fresno.

“Where are the $30-an-hour jobs going to come from?” asked Douglas Hensler, dean of the Fresno State business school.

Mayor Autry said the best thing local government can do is stay out of the way of the private sector, while encouraging entrepreneurs. He said the attract-and-then-retain approach to business is backward, citing the success of Ruiz and McDonald in beginning their businesses in the area.

Clovis city councilman Bob Whalen, who was in the audience, said the public needs to understand growth can be difficult. He said Clovis is trying to move several radio towers north of the city to make room for an industrial complex.

Though the city is having a difficult time with people who live near the proposed location for the towers, the potential open space could create more than 1,000 jobs, Whalen said.

Autry also told audience members to hold elected officials accountable if Fresno doesn’t improve.

“If we’re not moving this city forward,” he said, “vote our butts out.”

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