Historic Preservation Commission - Regular Meeting

Commissioner Eddings. Commissioner Johnston. Commissioner LaValle. Present. Commissioner Federico.

Present.

Commissioner Halazian. Vice Chair Hatwick.

Present.

Chair Sponsor.

Next, I will go ahead and read in our procedures for the meeting. For each matter considered by the commission, there will first be a staff presentation followed by presentation from the project applicant. The commissioners will have the opportunity to ask questions of staff and applicant before opening to public. Testimony from supporters of the project will be taken. followed by testimony for those in opposition. Staff may provide a summation if necessary. The applicant will have the right to a final rebuttal presentation prior to closing the public hearing, followed by consideration of the item action, if any, by the commission. In accordance with section 13 of article two of the Historic Preservation Commission bylaws governing length and public debate, all public testimony from those in support and in opposition of the project will be limited to three minutes per person. All public testimony will be presented to the commission at the podium, either in person or electronically. Any testimony that references race, religion, ethnicity, economic status, national origin, or any other classification protected under state or federal law in a derogatory manner shall be deemed irrelevant and will not be considered by the commission in making its determinations. If you challenge these matters in court, you may be limited to raising only those issues you or someone else raised in oral or written testimony or before the close of the hearing. With that, we will go ahead and move on to item three, approving the April 27th, 2026 meeting minutes. Do we have any changes to the minutes?

There are no changes to the minutes.

All right, I'll entertain a motion. All right, motion by Commissioner Johnston. I'll second. Second by Vice Chair Hatwig. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Minutes pass. We'll now move on to item four, approving of the agenda. Any changes to the agenda this evening?

Good evening, Chair and Commissioners. There are no changes proposed to the agenda.

Fantastic. I'll entertain a motion.

So moved.

All right. I have a motion by Commissioner LaValle.

Second.

And a second by Vice Chair Hatwig. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye. Opposed? Agenda is approved. Noting there's no items on consent calendar or continued matters, we will move on to the items of the commission, starting with item 7A. And that's an update regarding the historic Mewks home, historical property number two, located at 1007 R Street. And I will go ahead and invite our guest up.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Quentin Hoskins with the president of the Mewps Hall Museum, and it's a pleasure to be here this evening to share both the opportunities and challenges facing one of Fresno's most significant historical landmarks. As many of you know, museums today operate in a rapidly changing environment. Historic house museums in particular face unique challenges as we become, as we balance preservation of the past and move on with the expectations of the future. Museum challenges that we face today are happening across the nation, adapting to ever evolving tourism patterns, changing visitor expectation, rising operational expenses, inflammatory pressures, deferred maintenance, and growing shortage of skilled preservation tradespeople. Nobody knows this more than Miss LaValle. At the same time, museums are increasingly expected to serve as educational institutions, community gathering spaces, cultural resources, and stewards of history. While these challenges are significant, they also present opportunities for innovation, collaboration, and community engagement. The museum has served Fresno for more than a half a century as a place where visitors can experience the city's Gilded Age history firsthand as a Queen Anne Victorian residence built in 1889. There's a little debate on that. Some things say 1888, some say 1889, so we just kind of go with that. The house itself is one of the museum's most important artifacts. Unlike traditional museums, where collections are displayed within a building, at the Mewkes' home, the building is part of the collection. Every decorative element, architectural detail, piece of millwork, and historic finish contributes to the story we are entrusted to preserve.

Let's see here.

Catch up here, sorry about that. Preservation properties. Long-term care of this historic structure and finishes, as well as their architectural details and resource plannings is becoming trickier and trickier as we look for people to repair things such as shutters, which, you know, the shutters at the Mewkes home haven't been done since when it was restored. And it was done by the Fresno Unified School District Vocational Studies Program that did it. we've been requesting shutters to be fixed since 1981. So I've actually made the journey up onto the perilous edges of the windows to pull some of the shutters in just so they don't fall and hit somebody. One of our highest priorities involves the restoration of the home's architectural significant exterior shutters. These include the original hinge louvered shutters and the distinctive Bermuda or Bahama style awning shutters located on the second floor. These features are not merely decorative. They are character defining architectural elements that contribute significantly to the historic appearance and integrity of the building. In the photo, if you can see it from where you're sitting, you can actually see in the background, you can see where the shutters are starting to slip off. So what we do is we actually have little pieces of wood that we have fastened behind it to keep it from deteriorating and completely falling off, sliding down the roof and potentially hitting a guest. None of us want that. Over the decades, exposure to weather, moisture, and sunlight has resulted in varying levels of deterioration. One shutter is missing entirely and several shutters have been taken down in caution, while others have deteriorated beyond repair. Areas of concern include the rear stair hall and bathroom area above the entrance elevator lift, the bay window adjacent to what's known as Mary's bedroom, the nursery and dressing room areas, the tower bay, and John's bedroom. The last major restoration effort, like I said, was with Fresno Unified School District, and that was under the craftsperson Richard Johnson. That project shows that we have an excellent example of how educational partnerships can simultaneously preserve historic research resources and preserve valuable hands on training opportunities for future generations. In addition, we have noticed that there is several areas of exterior deterioration, including below one of the basement windows and the corbels to the side of the window. The photo that you can see right behind the word restoration, you may be able to see a little bit of it there. On the photo that you look at now, you will see the rot happening in the bottom right corner And at some point, we don't know who, but somebody put synthetic decking as a topper to it, which obviously that would not be a historically accurate material. Plastic was not there yet. They had celluloid, but that was flammable. Yes. At the roofline, there are also several preservation concerns. There are portions of the ridge framing near the rear of the house, which would be over one of the bedrooms, also the kitchen area. They're starting to lift, which, as we know, is just a natural process that happens due to the sun and the hot weather and the cold and the rain just constantly working those nails loose. We have checked the attic area. There is no leaks coming in, so we are very happy about that. Also, if you look behind the words decorative and cresting, you'll see the two square posts. We have recently discovered in a photograph that actually features Mrs. Mewkes on the front porch that there are two decorative ball finials missing from those elements. Hopefully someday we can get those restored. As you can imagine, getting somebody on that roof is not an easy challenge. Operational challenges that we have faced in the past, well, 12 years that I've been there includes, as we all know, COVID-19. We were shut down for a very long time. Fortunately, the museum has been on great standing financially to continue its efforts and preservation work forward. Rising utility costs are constantly an issue. I know some things have changed recently to where they are allowing some, the Department of Interior is allowing some solar to be put on historic buildings. I honestly do not see putting solar on the roof of the museum because that would look atrocious. Possibly maybe on the roof annex building that was built by the Mewkes Corporation, but that's gonna be such a minimal area, I don't know that it will be beneficial. Sometimes our summertime air conditioning bills, and Liz, you can probably attest to that too, are into the thousands of dollars. There is no climate control in these buildings because there's no way to seal everything. Some of the other things that we've faced was reduced visitation from COVID-19, canceled programs. The uncertainty regarding public gatherings, they all significantly impacted house museums and museums across the country. Yet through creativity, determination, and community support, we successfully navigated that difficult period of time and emerged stronger, much like Kearney Mansion and the Fresno Historical Society. Another ongoing challenge is collection storage. I know in the past Kearney Mansion has also stored things in the basement, much like we do. Those are not always ideal spaces, especially when you end up with moisture issues. We haven't had that challenge yet, but that's because we have a dirt floor, but we have had areas where water has come in. The museum has a great volunteer program and board leadership. The volunteers of the museum are truly the heart of the museum. They serve as tour guides, educators, gardeners, event staff, housekeeping, school program and special event coordinators, fundraisers, and community outreach. So they pretty much do it all. I just run the place. I'm there to oversee it when there's a little hiccup in the plan. As some of us know, the hiccups can be somebody breaking in. Those are always a little concerning. We've only had a couple of those, knock wood. There is a little bit of real wood down here. So we are appreciative that we do have that support. So far, we've done very well. The Mewks Hall Museum Corporation put in a heightened security system in the Mewks Hall about five years ago after our major break-in that we had. to where there are approximately 32 cameras around that museum. It's very disrupted to sleep cycles because in the middle of the night, your phone goes off and says, person detected in the Muke's parking lot, person detected in the Muke's courtyard. And then of course that ensues the run down to the building, call the law enforcement. Usually, fortunately for us, they haven't harmed the house. They've jumped back over the fence and they've left. So we are fortunate there. The board of directors also plays a critical role in ensuring the museum's sustainability. Their leadership planning, fundraising efforts, and commitment to stewardship help guide the organization through both opportunities and challenges. One of the most exciting aspects of the museum work is the interpretation and education. Visitor expectations continue to evolve. The museum must adapt accordingly. Today's audience seek experiences that are engaging, interactive, and relevant. We continually evaluate our tours and educational programs to ensure they remain meaningful for visitors of all ages and backgrounds. When you're running a Victorian house museum and you have a child come in to you and go, well, where's the telephone? Because they're looking for a cell phone sitting somewhere. And then you say, well, we had a rotary phone or an operator. What's that? They reply to where we show them the old telephones. We have the casket phone hanging on the wall where you have to go click, click, click, click and get the operator. We also have a rotary phone because children have not seen those and they're all looking for the buttons. It's quite funny. And then they think about laundry day. Laundry day was brutal in the Victorian era. You were using lye and things like that to clean things. There were some other unsavory things that they would use in laundry as well. We have a high-tech washer, which is a metal drum that you put clothes into, and you rock the handle back and forth. Hence the term, don't agitate us, because you're agitating the clothing. I'm sure most of us have heard that from our family members at some point. Many of the things that we're currently working on is expanded programming, more research into different community attributions that the family may have had, including Ann Mewkes, which was the last resident of the home. She was a teacher at, sorry, my mind just went blank on that, but at one of the elementary schools here in Fresno. It's unfortunately no longer around. It was a building that met demolition. Tours and lectures, we have children that come through on a regular basis. We have guests that come all over from, well, all over the country. We get quite a few people, strangely enough, from Albania, Russia, China, and Italy seem to be the most prevalent out of the area. And then we get a few locals and a lot from all over the state of California. School partnerships, it's really important to work with the schools. Kearney Mansion does their program out there with the schools as well as many other programs that they do with the students. We have a hands-on learning series where we teach them to write with quill pens and fountain pens because many of them have never seen ink in a container. We also have actual chalkboard slates because the kids are used to a whiteboard or the new boards that the digital boards that the teachers use. One of the most interesting programs is the typewriter because they're looking at it going, well, I'm touching the key, but it's not doing anything. Well, press a little harder and they really get a kick out of that. It's really fun. Public outreach, we are continuing our work on that. We are reaching out to Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, all sort of different organizations, getting them involved. Sometimes it's not always about a tour of the house. Sometimes it's getting them interested in what plants were historic during the Victorian era. Also, that meant what plants were grown here in California and Fresno. As we know, without water, a lot of things don't grow here. The future vision is a regional partnership, shared resources, broader audience, and collaborative presentation efforts. One of our goals at the Meukes Home is working with other local museums in the area, different cultural museums, just to see how we can all come together as one. Because without each other, what are we? We're a small institution that sometimes can be a little teetering. Together, we just make a great representation of Fresno. In closing, to preserve the structure, interpret collections, engage with the community, and inspire for future generations is all of our goals, just to keep everything going, to preserve Fresno's architectural and historic past. As we know, the 70s and the 50s were not so great to Fresno. A lot of buildings became either shorter or gone entirely. I would like to thank all of you and as well as from our volunteers and board of directors for allowing us to come here today and speak on behalf of the Mewks Hall Museum. Any questions I can answer?

Questions from the commission.

Yes.

Tell me what exactly is your status with the city?

The Mewks Hall Museum is a home that was given to the Well, not given. It was purchased by the city of Fresno by Ted Wills. And it was then turned into a museum to preserve it and became the gift for the centennial. It was supposed to be 1975, but as we all know, restoration work doesn't quite always go according to plan. Right. And it opened in 78.

So are you classified as a park?

We are a park. We're also on the national and local register of historic places.

So the budget's almost done for this, but they will come back around in mid-year. Being very involved with the Measure P funding for parks, and you are a city park owned by the city, There seems to me that there would be a high level of interest by the city to qualify not for the arts and cultural grant necessarily. That's one too, but there are actually tons of funds, way more than 12%. that are in the highest need neighborhoods of which you would qualify down here. So have you worked with the city at all on getting funding through the Measure P?

We did get Measure P funding last year.

As a cultural institution or as a park?

Okay. And they actually rebuilt the exterior steps and some of the porches that were very problematic.

Perfect. Because that is a 30 year initiative. And rather than the programming side, I think you qualify very highly in a highest need neighborhood. If you need to remind them that you're in a highest need neighborhood and continue to push for annual funding and with your list of things that need to get done because that has to, that you're a perfect example of one of the things they want to fund in a highest need neighborhood. I mean, you can always apply for the grants, but the art and culture grants are messy and hard right now. So I think as a park, you have enormous opportunity to get, with the city council and the mayor and get on annual funding from that Measure P parks money for existing park improvement.

Thank you for that information. Any other questions that I can answer for anyone?

Any other commissioners at the moment?

I think it lends itself to something we even talked about at one of the meetings a few months ago about partnering up again with schools. And I know I've asked schools around if they would have some interest in CTEC was interested. So that's something that I've connected the chair with a contact for that. And hopefully as summer ends and school starts up, there can be some fun little projects there. Fantastic, thank you.

Real quick, I know you mentioned scouting and things like that, and so me as being a lifelong scouter myself, so part of them earning their ranks, whether it be the Gold Award for Girl Scouts, Eagle Scout for Scouting America, or the Summit Award, which is a venturing award, which is a different program within scouting, They have to do a service project. And so part of that service project is some of those things that you may actually need help with. Are there things that you might think of that essentially youth between, say, the ages of 16 to about 20, that they would be able to help with that type of effort?

Yeah, definitely. We've used them in the past on smaller projects because they were younger at the time. But I know there's different levels of ages for different categories. We recently did launch an internship program with the museum, with Fresno State, and that has been working out wonderful. As you know, you cannot always get to all the sessioning on your own and photographing and documenting and all that. So it's very helpful to have those interns.

I have two more thoughts.

Yeah, go ahead.

In that light, AVID, the kids that are in AVID program in the city, they're Fresno based central unified school kids mostly. They have done tremendous work. If you would hook up with AVID, they will do projects. And the final thing I wanted just to say is I understand completely about climate control and all the things, which is why the historical society purchased downtown building, and it's now called the Archive on Kern, pending funding, which will take a minute, but our vault will be accessible to all of your things too. You don't have to donate them. They can just be stored. And that will be something that we will be making available, we'll have five separate rooms, temperature controlled by material, and it will be in our basement, but we're just around the corner. So that will be, it won't be an option this year, but hopefully by sometime in 2027, I'm hoping that we can do that and our archivists can just put them safely where you can get to them anytime you need to. But that's the goal of that vault is to be a storage for the county.

would be fantastic. Interestingly enough, a little point of interest for you in, let's see here, 1887, Dr. Mewkes and his brother Joseph purchased or were given eight plots of land from Theo Kearney. So I found that interesting, and it was in the Sacramento Bee.

Yeah, we'll find it.

So it's always interesting to find these little hints that you can find while researching.

They are. I feel your pain. We just went through an ARPA restoration at Kearney. It didn't get as far as it needed to because things were deteriorating faster. But keep going. keep it up because the mux home is really important to, as an asset to the community and all your volunteers and your staff and the children. If they can't come to us, we just assume they come to you. So.

And when they can't make it to us, we send them to you. Yeah, I know.

But we are collaborative and I, I just want you to know that that ball will be available at some point in the future. If we ever get funding again. Thank you.

Any other commissioners?

All right.

Okay. Beans that this is an update. This doesn't need to go out. So thank you, Quentin.

My pleasure.

I appreciate you making it here and I appreciate the fact that you are on the, on the mend. So I hope that you still are having a speedy recovery, but I appreciate you being here.

Never in my life did I think I'd say I was happy to be able to eat salad again.

All right, everyone. Thank you. Next, we'll go ahead and move on to updates about the historic preservation month. So I'm going to kind of go down the the commissioners here and we're going to kind of go through the projects that we worked on and their overall successes and things like that. And I'm with that. I'll start with Commissioner Eddings.

Yeah. So let me think. What did we do? Well, we put it together. So there's a calendar that was. And I went to the opening night at the archive and saw that great video, which I had not seen before. Got to see some other artifacts that were there. And I think I took in I'd not go to the pub quiz, but I did donate to the pub quiz. Yes. I had a good time, and I tried to promote as many people going as possible, and those who went reported they had a good time.

All right. Commissioner Johnston? You want Julie to speak? Okay. Commissioner Federico?

Well, we both had a lot to do with it, but thank you. We had our lecture, discussion lecture on the history of Fresno going back at least 10,000 years. And we had a friend, well, a good friend of the communities, MK Youngblood. He's a member of the Mono tribe. And he started out our presentation and it was fabulous um it was like getting his point of view and what native americans are doing today and in the community and elsewhere and then sarah and i commissioner johnson and i did ours on um a little bit of the prehistory around here. And then I did more of the historic part and it was just an all interactive though. We had a professor there, uh, Dr. Pryor and, um, it just, it flowed really well. I do want to get the word out earlier next year. Um, we had a lot of turnout from, um, historically Fresno from Facebook and I want to be sure and, um, give them the heads up earlier when we do it, because I think we have a lot more people. We had about 20, so it was pretty good. Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Yes. I learned a lot from you as well. It was great. Thank you.

All right. Commissioner Hathaway?

Lots of fun was had. Of course, the opening was a great time. I was able to pair a beer for that night, and that was part of the fun, right? And then I got teased about a really ancient arrowhead, which turned out to be plastic. That was a lot of fun. Fill into that one. I thought I was holding something that was, you know, really, but it was a replica. It was, it was awesome. It was great story. It had me engaged. And so that was, it was good night. It was really fun. Of course the, the video was, it was a great time. And then later on a week or so later was the pub quiz night, which we got to help arrange. And a chair sponsor did a killer job again with the questions. I think the highest score was maybe four, not even 60% on the answers. So it was tough. It was tough, but another wonderful time. And I look forward to that every year. All right.

Yeah, I'll go now. So was for the kickoff at AOK. Got to visit with everyone and see our different teams. displays and everything that we had going on. It was fantastic for that. Um, I was only able to do a couple of them, uh, this year just because I too was busy with just life. Um, and, uh, so I did do the bike through history because, uh, as the, as the docent for that, um, and as the docent, we did, uh, the labor, um, throughout, uh, the area. Um, we had about, 30 people on the ride. And we were able to highlight not only current sites that are existing, but potential sites, as well as the success of an adaptive reuse, that being the Rosenberg property and how that related to labor. Did work the pub quiz as the, as the, as the person running the pub quiz. Um, I try to make the questions easier. And then each year I apparently try to make them harder. So I mean, you know, somebody wants to take over. I'm happy to let somebody else do that. Um, And then the last thing I did is we hosted at the Muke's Home a financial incentives workshop. We did have a couple of ladies that came over from Huntington Boulevard with regards to different options that were available. So it was very intimate to be able to talk with them and kind of give them not just the different information and things like that, but kind of like game out like a scenario as to what that would look like for them.

It was a pleasure being on the subcommittee once again. I think despite our best efforts to get things done earlier, it's going to take everybody's work to make sure that we do that. We had well over 20 events on the calendar, including our community partnerships with Heritage Fresno, Pat Hunter, who's here today, came out to the opening ceremony or the opening event. There's so much good stuff that happens during Historic Preservation Month. We produced 12 or 15, I don't know, historic photos for the lobby at City Hall. And there's so many things that I think it would really behoove us to start like in January and really have a calendar finalized by March so that we can get the word out because I do know there were a lot of people that felt like they didn't have enough notice. So that's up to us. we can do that. So my recommendation would be start the subcommittee in January and have it finalized by March and then have an entire month to publicize so that we do get better attendance because I know people are very interested in attending. So otherwise we were always happy to share the archive on Kern as a starting place or an ending place or a beer place or whatever it is uh there were thank you to the city for coming out and having a table of information again to pat uh julie and and our commissioners sarah we're out there and we just need to make sure that we draw the people that we know are interested in history next time

And I do want to acknowledge that there were some things I was not able to get to, and there were some things that were omitted from our calendar. And I want to note a couple of things. Some of it was just... There was one thing in particular that was omitted and I just plum forgot. And I want to apologize for that.

I picked it up. We got it out there.

Right. And I appreciate the historical site for doing that. I could tell you, honestly, I have 4,000 things rattling around in my head all at once. And it's a bunch of spinning plates and dancing monkeys that are all going in there. And so it gets very, very crazy and I just forget. So I do apologize. And I don't want to, I don't want it to be that we're not supporting our other fellow preservationists and things like that, and our collectors of history, because they're critical as well. And so I do apologize for missing those things. All right. With that, since that was an update, we will move on to our regular monthly topics, starting with our staff updates.

good evening chair and commissioners ashley atkinson assistant director for planning and development um first i will start with our regular update on the brewer adobe uh we are still in conversations with the property owner um we as reported previously we had a meeting with him several months ago where we presented options to move forward with any future development he wishes to do at the property. As of last week, he has not confirmed a decision about taking any particular path with the property, but we are still in touch with him and also in discussions with the city attorney's office about how to ensure that we're getting the minimum maintenance and that the property continues to be preserved as best we can in its current condition and location. We will be continuing to reach out to the property owner and hope to have more to report on that in future months.

Okay. Any questions on that for now?

Okay. Next, we do have an update on the Chinatown Historic District survey, which I'm pleased to share is moving forward. We have retained Stantec as the contractor to conduct that survey update. We had our kickoff meeting on May 28th, so there are a few weeks into the work. At this time, we are just in the information gathering phase. They are making sure that they have all the available documentation from the previous survey, any other sources. We are working to provide them with the documentation that we have on file, both hard copy and electronic on all our resources and past studies that were done and anything else. So if there is anything that you're aware of that you want to make sure that they have, feel free to reach out to me and let me know and we'll make sure that that gets into their hands so that they can make sure they have complete documents as they get started. But looking forward to sharing more about that very soon. Any questions?

Do you need a subcommittee with the commission to be able to be available? Or is that just going to go run through architectural review? If there's any questions that Stantec has of us?

I don't know if it would be architectural review. We hadn't discussed a subcommittee in particular. Okay. Do you have thoughts on that, Jennifer?

We, let's have a conversation internally and then in our agenda setting, and maybe we put that on the next agenda for the commission to consider. We were very, you know, I guess it was a couple of years ago, we had said that we would be able to do this with staff, obviously staff left. So we were very fortunate that we were able to budget enough money to hire a consultant to do this work. But I think having some assistance from the commission could always be helpful. So certainly we'll chat about that at our agenda for next agenda sitting conference for next meeting and talking to the chair and vice chair, if you'd like to put that on the next agenda, we can do that. All right.

I do have one more update. which is on staffing. So as you know, we last year went through an ongoing effort to recruit a historic preservation specialist. Unfortunately, we're ultimately not successful with any of the candidates, although we did get quite a number of applications. Unfortunately, none of them ultimately worked out in terms of full-time hiring. That position is going to remain open until filled. It should be up on the city's personnel website soon if it's not already. And if you hear of anyone, if you have any referrals to make suggestions, feel free to point them to that listing because it will stay up there sort of indefinitely. We do plan to promote it in some of the same places we did previously, but don't expect there to be a sort of recruitment, an intensive recruitment over a short period of time. We're just going to let the position remain available. And in the meantime, because we have been kind of limping along for over a year with with a combination of staff skills and expertise. We have gotten approval to enter into a contract with Rincon Consultants to serve our historic preservation specialist function. We did an RFQ for this service, got a lot of interest from different consulting firms with great qualifications, ultimately selected Rincon to provide the service, so they will be conducting all of the activities that require that historic preservation specialist qualification. So our processes will be shifting a little bit. Carrie will still be the point person for a lot of things. I will still be supervising a lot of things, but as far as the person with the expertise or the people with the expertise, those will be the staff at Rincon who do include architectural historians, and others with a lot of great qualifications. So we are not under contract with them just yet. It was approved by city council last Thursday. So it'll be a couple more weeks before we move forward, but we'll be pleased to start working with them and hopefully getting our processes smoothed out a little bit and getting that expertise and good information that they have to offer to us for all of the activities we're doing.

Go ahead. Just a quick question. So obviously in my role, I get a lot of people inquiring, where do they turn to the city? What is the process that you prefer now to continue to go through? You, Carrie, what are we doing? just so I know what the right thing to say is. Let's say someone's interested in examining having a facility or building be on the register or questions about that.

I would suggest that they still start with the historic.preservation at fresno.gov email address and whether that will go to Carrie and be referred to someone at Rincon or whether they will have direct contact access to that account, we'll sort those kinds of things out. And that address will remain in perpetuity for, you know, even if we did hire a full-time person later on. So that's where I would suggest that they start and we'll make sure that the, you know, that the inquiry gets to the right place. But Carrie is still sort of the front line as far as, you know, the person who's aware of all our programs and, you know, how to route things. And so-

Is it appropriate or that we mentioned now that there's a high level consulting firm that will be reviewing these applications? Is that common knowledge or is that internal?

I'm going to jump in here. So absolutely, it's common knowledge. Because it's been approved by the city council. I mean, ultimately, everything will still route through planning. It's not going to go directly to them. We will route things to them when it is appropriate. But we were excited to share with you because I know many of you have been. questioning us. And we are really excited to have a really, really broad bench of people that we can send things to when we need to. So it's fantastic, but everything will still go through the same pipeline that it has in the past and will continue in the future. And then we'll route as necessary.

I probably get 10 calls a week.

Yeah.

Being on this commission, I don't want to say much other than here's who you call. So that is good to know and thank you for that update.

I think you can just consider them part of the city's staff, even though they are not full-time city employees, they'll have a city contact and just consider them our experts and hopefully that will benefit us in a lot of ways. And there's other services they're offering in addition to project review.

Perfect.

you know, helping us meet all our CLG obligations. They can offer training if that's something we need for staff, things like that.

Thank you.

Last one, our regular kind of report on activity. We continue to process all the planning entitlements for buildings over 50 years old as well as building permits. for all buildings over 50 years old continuing to see a large volume there and referring those to the architectural review subcommittee or potentially to the commission as needed completing all our 106 reviews as they come in which remain largely home improvement programs or the home improvement program run through our housing and community development division Something of note this month is that we did have the application deadline for the Mills Act program June 1st. We received three applications. We're processing all of them in hopes that all three of them continue to move forward. They do all need a little bit of work on their work plans, and so we're assisting them with that, but hope to have the inspections in August. and bring those to the commission, the contracts to the commission in October. So for those who are on the subcommittee, please look out for scheduling those inspections. We are working with the county to get their rep there. And that will come from Carrie in the hopefully not too distant future. And we did receive and complete one application in April, nothing on that program in May because we are at the end of the year and our funding has been more or less exhausted for the program at this point.

All right. Any questions for staff?

Okay.

Thank you so much, Ashley. Thank you. We'll move on to our subcommittee updates. So we'll start with the architectural.

turn your mic on uh yes we we had one um tenant improvement proposal at 732 fulton and we had no issues with it so that was our one action this past month okay all right um we'll go to uh municode

A new meaning code.

Okay.

Uh, we had, uh, another meeting that, uh, is kind of the, the footsteps, the beginning of the whole process, uh, our next meeting this next month, uh, after we've kind of gone through everything, prioritize things. Next thing will be, uh, the actual changes, suggestions, some of the deeper dive stuff. So we're all considered trained at this point for the most part. And now the rest is examining and, um, going through the code.

You trained?

No.

All right. I don't think we had any financial incentives. We didn't have any... I do know that the HPC committee met a couple of times during May while we were trying to just kind of making sure everything was staying smooth for the month. And then sign and plaque, not really a meeting, but I did get the email from Carrie that we have somebody who's interested in getting one of our new plaque versions for the front of the building. Okay. our archaeology do we have an archaeology supplement no no we just had a presentation okay not yet all right were there any other ones that we missed okay there was action with the pillars yes so the pillar is um i do know that that we have the the pillar that's being rebuilt at um palm and is it simpson i think it's palm and simpson Yeah, it was destroyed in the car accident. Um, and I did, I did ask staff that because we were concerned about that pillar, if we could look into what happened to the Hazelwood and Ventura pillar that, um, appeared to have been removed in the process of doing an ADA, uh, ramp upgrade. Um, So for those that are not familiar, Hazelwood Boulevard is a diagonal boulevard that runs from Ventura down to Butler. And on either end of that housing tract, there used to be a column that noted just Hazelwood on it. The one on Ventura was removed at some point, probably a year or more ago during an improvement project. Okay. Moving on to the chairperson's report. So I know that everybody was kind of like, this is a very light meeting that we have going on. And I just wanted to make sure that we had the meeting this evening to make sure that we got the HP month items kind of discerned quickly, because I know that as we go through the months, you know, things start to kind of fall apart. We forget what happened. And so I wanted to make sure that we got it done here in June so that it was out of the way. And so that's why that we kind of had a light meeting and why this was just updates rather than any type of action items. So I do appreciate everybody that was able to attend and things like that. And with that, I'm done with my report. So we'll move on to the unscheduled items, starting with members of the commission.

Okay.

Okay.

Do you want to go first there? No?

Who had something to go?

Oh, I do.

Okay.

Okay. Two things. This is, I think, the appropriate place to share. If you have not been under ROC, you know that the G sign as presented to the commission updates regularly over the period of time that State Center Community College District was working on it is now restored and up. And this Friday at 7 p.m. will be lighted for the first time. So there will be a plaque. that the historical site and the state center community college install that will tell the process of the building from Maddie to guarantee to state center so that the history will be there. And we're working on that. And secondly, I sit for the mayor on the, America 250 Celebration Committee. And one of the projects that we are doing is called 250 Voices, One America, One Fresno. We will be taping. Everybody can participate. It takes about five minutes. Our next session will be on 4th of July at the Archive on Kern from 10 to 4. And even if you pop in for 10 minutes, I really encourage you, bring your family if you don't mind your kids being taped This is something that will be shown during the year, but also it's kind of a time capsule for the tricentennial. And so we really are trying to highlight what was 2026 all about. Those of us that remember 1976, no, it wasn't digital. And those of us that won't be here for the tricentennial want to leave this moment in time and also remember you'd be amazed at the people we've interviewed who all are concerned about AI and fake news and having their own faces and voices recorded is something that's truly special and 2026 will leave its mark. And yes, we will interview 250 people.

All right. Anybody else from the commission? All right. Any updates from staff? Okay, we'll extend out to the public. Anybody that has any comments, please come forward. All right, seeing none, we'll bring it back. So our next meeting is for July 27th at six o'clock. And at this point, we'll entertain a motion for adjournment. All right, all in favor? Aye. Okay, meeting's adjourned at 6.54 PM.