Historic Preservation Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Can we hear me? There we go. Alright. Good evening, and welcome to the Monday, 04/28/2025 Historic Preservation Commission meeting. We're gonna go ahead and call a meeting to order and take roll call, please.

Commissioner Eddings, Commissioner Johnston? Present. Commissioner Laval? Present. Commissioner Federico? Present. Commissioner Hlagian?

Present.

Vice chair Hatwig and chair Sponsler.

Present. Alright. With that, we do have quorum. So we're gonna go ahead and move on to the next item that needs to be covered. For each matter considered by the commission, there will first be a staff presentation followed by a presentation from the project applicant.

The commissioners will then have the opportunity to ask questions of staff and applicant before opening to public. Testimony from the supporters of the project will be taken followed by testimony from those in opposition. Staff may provide a summation if necessary. The applicant will have the right to a final rebuttal presentation prior to the closing of the public hearing, followed by consideration of the item and action, if any, by the commission. In accordance with Section 13 of Article II of the Historic Preservation Commission bylaws governing length of 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 must be presented to the commission at the podium. Any testimony that references race, religion, ethnicity, economic status, national origin or any other classification protected under state and federal law in a derogatory manner shall be deemed irrelevant and will not be considered by 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. So with that, I'll move on to item three, which is approving the 03/24/2025 regular meeting minutes. Were there any changes to those minutes? All right, I'll entertain a motion for approval. And a second?

Second.

Okay. Motion by, Commissioner Johnson, second by Commissioner Laval. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Minutes are approved. We'll go ahead and now move on to approving today's agenda of 04/28/2025. Are there changes to the agenda?

None at this time.

Okay. I'll entertain a motion to approve.

So move.

And a second? All right. Motion, by Commissioner Laval, second by Commissioner Eddings. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Agenda passes. We'll go ahead and move past consent calendar and continued matters since there are no items, to discuss at the time. And we will move on to Item seven for commission items. Item 7A, file ID 20Five-three92, review and provide comments on the draft initial study mitigated negative declaration for the Peacock Building located at 937 F Street pursuant to FMC 12 16 o six. We have a presentation.

Good evening, commissioners. I wanted to make a couple of changes for the record. First, this is under your additional duties and powers. The commission is being asked to consult on a potential project that the city is undertaking. We have engaged an environmental contractor, to prepare an initial study.

It is not complete. There were some incomplete work product documents that were uploaded to the record, and, those have been removed from the item because they are not public at this time. So the project is being evaluated currently, and that's why we're here because we're going to present the project, allow feedback from the commission. And then when the work product is completed and it's published for a public comment, then we would come back to the commission for for final decision making if necessary. So, with that, I'm gonna turn it over to assistant director Phil Sky, who's gonna talk about, the Peacock Building and the project that the city is wishing to undertake at this time.

Okay. Thank you, everyone. Chair sponsor, commissioners, thank you all for having me. Appreciate it very much tonight. As director Clark said, we are, we have not completed CEQUA.

We are here to receive your comments on a proposed project, which is the acquisition, future acquisition, demolition, and construction of affordable housing. The Peacock Building in Chinatown located at 937945 F Street as well as 942 Fagan Alley. This project, the Peacock Building, is comprised of multiple, physical address is 1 APN 467 Dash 074 Dash 02. As I said, our intent is to acquire, demolish, and, construct affordable housing at the subject site in the future at a future time. I'm going to advance the slides here.

You can see, this is a visual of the Peacock Building in relatively current condition, at least the front of the property. You can also see an aerial in the bottom right hand corner, which gives you a good sense of the parcel itself, the configuration of the existing buildings. I wanna mention to you a little bit about the history of this of this site. Get this to oh, I think I just went too far. Okay.

The subject site, was developed with dwellings as early as 1885. The S Street Building was listed, with the oldest permit noted, was dated April 1910. Ground Floor was commercial. 2nd Floor, was a residential hotel at that time, which is consistent for buildings that were constructed on urban environments in the twentieth century. The first major upgrade to the building occurred in the nineteen forties.

A 2006 historic survey of Fresno's Chinatown area determined subject building itself does not appear to retain sufficient integrity or meet the level of significance necessary for the national register, the California register, or Fresno's local register. However, this building is eligible as part of a potential district under, the resident registered criterion, and so I wanted to make note of that. Let's take a look at the building in its current condition. It consists of vacant, so I want you to note that, the structures that are there presently are vacant. It's a vacant two story building, which is the residential, structure there that fronts F Street, and then has a perpendicular residential single level building, that runs, from F Street to Fagan Alley.

Over the years, the building has been altered without permits, unfortunately, and now sits neglected. It has accumulated currently more than I think it's closer to 226 code violations that were a result of our anti slum enforcement team, how the city attorney's office becoming engaged, and so it is in disrepair. And so just to summarize what the project what the proposed project is that we're asking for you to comment on, is our intention to acquire, in the future, demolish, and construct affordable housing at this site. The building itself is not eligible for the historic register, but could be a contributor to a future historic district, and so we are seeking your comments tonight. Thank you so much.

Thank you. With that, I'll, bring it to the commission. So questions from the commission? K. Commissioner Laval.

Hello. Hello, commissioner.

As we saw recently with the Baoentong Building, there were artifacts still inside kinda buried. What's the status of ephemera that might be internal to that building at this time?

Commissioner Leval, it's a fantastic question. Myself, my staff, housing production manager, Danny Tomay, who's here tonight, we were hands on with the demolition of the Ballantong Building. We're so pleased that we're able to recover, those artifacts, and, they are in safe storage today. So thank you for that question. As it relates to the Peacock Building, there are no known artifacts at this time, but I wanna just you know, I want the record to reflect that the city of Fresno currently, only has a letter of intent recorded, you know, for, our interest express our interest to the current owner to purchase the property in the future.

We have not executed a purchase and sale agreement. To do that, of course, we'd have to complete CEQUA and, take that to council for council action. So we have we've had limited access to the building is what I'm trying to say. And so once you know, assuming we can get to the place where we do have an executed purchase and sale agreement, we then have full access to the property and be able to look for those potential, artifacts. I'm so grateful for the experience we have at Ballantong. I think it's gonna bode well for, any future action with Pea with Peacock Building.

I would just recommend that before any of these projects move along, whether the building ends up being torn down or part of the district, that there'd be a caveat that they'd be fully examined for artifacts. Because in the last go around, a lot of the things that came out from Baoentang were in the basement. And because it was a, hazard, people the city couldn't go in just on its own and and check that out or the society historical society couldn't do that. So you were able to recover some massively important artifacts, and that should just be a consideration as all these projects move along, in my opinion.

Thank you for that comment, commissioner. We we share that that interest and value for those artifacts. And you're correct with Ballantong, we it was not safe for us to do that until we started to peel back the layers. So, yeah, we would intend to do that. Thank you.

I just have could you reintroduce yourself? I didn't catch your name.

Certainly, commissioner Johnston. My name is Phil Sky. I'm one of the assistant directors of the plan development department. I oversee all of our cities, affordable housing development, and homeless response.

And do we have representative from the SWCA? Because we were asked to look at the, cultural technical report.

Yeah. We're not gonna do that tonight, commissioner. Again, I think as our director indicated, that was updated or, excuse me, uploaded erroneously, and so we're that's not available for comment tonight.

Yeah. Especially, like any archaeological, information discussion probably shouldn't be public. And and I so okay. Yes. I made a few comments on that mitigated negative declaration. The report looked very good, but I had a few comments and concerns. So now we're I saw that in the MMRR that we would be looking at this at 60 again, it's at 60% completion or 60% planning level that the commission would look get a chance to look at that and comment it again at the 60% level.

So, commissioner, what I would ask is, again, consultation prior to preparation of a CEQA document with the commission should in fall include what you would like to see in the final document, what kinds of information you would need to make a determination, and if there are specific mitigation measures and or programmatic implementation procedures that you'd like to see happen during the project moving forward.

Okay. Yeah. My understanding is that we were going to, the that the document we we already reviewed is not complete or not ready.

So, again, it was uploaded erroneously. It is not a complete document and should not have been provided. So those are not to be discussed tonight on the record. So the only two items that are available are the historic Chinatown historic resources survey and the Chinatown building survey form. So exhibits d and e. A, b, and c are not available for public scrutiny. So we're asking you before we prepare documents and provide them to the public for you to provide feedback on the project and what you would like to see in final documents, the kinds of information you would like to be included in those.

Right. Yes. I was particularly concerned about getting a completed updated resource form for the building. We were provided or I only saw a 2,006 form, and I understand. But they've collected an awful lot of data from what I've seen, and so I would like to see an updated resources form. It's called the DPR form. Yeah. So one one that addresses the current condition of the building, not the 2006 condition of the building.

Thank you for that comment.

Yeah. And and of course, they addressed it tangentially, but really, would like to see too that we address the archaeological sensitivity of the area. I think that that's something that as we go forward with all the issues around Chinatown that we're gonna wanna do a more comprehensive, you know, thought exercise around the archaeological resources out there, you know, the subsurface buried stuff. Yeah. And also the things that occur in in basements and things like that. It's kind of a continuum between the built environment and the subsurface environment.

Thank you, commissioner.

Alright, Phil. So you have something

One other just a quick question. Does this has has adaptive reuse of this building can been considered at all?

Yeah. Commissioner, Halejin, we we have considered it. It is not feasible, based upon the current condition. As I mentioned, there are more than 200 code violations, and it has been improved over and over again on multiple occasions over the last few decades, without permits. And so, it it is just not gonna be feasible at this point.

It is a unreinforced masonry structure?

I'm sorry. Commissioner, do

Is it an unreinforced masonry structure?

I don't know the answer to that question. K. Yeah. Off the top of my head, commissioner.

Thank you.

You're

welcome. So I I any any from any other commissioners? Okay. So a couple things that I'd like us to know is we'd like to dig a little bit deeper than just the permit. Mhmm. Just doing a quick news article search. It looks like that the building may have may have been from nineteen o eight or a little bit earlier than that. Although the permit is from April 1910, that gives us a little bit of a different timeframe as well. My questions with it come as this, how will the acquisition and demolition affect the work that the commission is doing with regards to, trying to complete the Chinatown survey and actually implement the Chinatown district historic district?

So, Commissioner, I'm gonna receive that question as a comment, tonight, and these are and the purpose of us being here tonight is to receive all of your comments, all of your questions, and then be able to incorporate them, into our, initial study. Okay.

Because and and as part of my comment is because, obviously, with the and now with this one, this the the when the original 2006 survey was done, it was really focused in on that block and a half that these two sit in. And and I know that as we look towards the pro housing goals and and the goals that the the city and the state have, we also have to be mindful about how do we go about maintaining integrity. And I'm not saying to the point of keeping the buildings, but I'm saying to the the idea that if we're gonna have a new structure there, it should match what it, you know, what it it was part of there or what's part of Chinatown and not be something that's, you know, anachronous.

Mhmm. Okay. Yep. Commissioner, I'll tell you that is a very high priority for us. And so, you know, if in the future, we were to be able to proceed with, acquisition, demolition, and eventually, you know, some new housing in Chinatown, you know, making sure that it it is it fits the feel and historic character of the district is really, critical to us.

I wanted Sure. Just to follow-up on share sponsor's comments. I think that that's a critical question in the fact that there'll be a tipping point where so many buildings, which obviously aren't in good shape and have many violations, that the only sensible thing may be to take them down. But you'll get to a tipping point where there's not enough left to retain a district. And I think that what chair sponsor and the commission is concerned about is where is that and that whatever else is incorporated in there does retain the flavor.

But, also, in the bigger scope, if we're trying to make a district and everything's gone, then it will be really difficult to accomplish that. And our Chinatown deserves better than that. So it's gotta be a blend of all you're trying to do and what we're trying to do to make it work in my opinion.

Yeah. Thank you for that comment, commissioner Lavelle. I will say that, you know, it is the the goal of, it's my goal and the goal of our our staff, the goal of this administration to lead with, minimal. I wanna be careful here in what I say, but but just I would say, just the right amount of public investment, to facilitate the private investment, that will follow, which would you know, if if done well, leads to the outcome that you just identified.

So I I would just I'd like to ask, is there any record of what this building looked like when it was first built? Because, obviously, what's there now is a more, recent renovation. Is that correct? The facade has changed?

That's correct.

Yes.

Right. So then the question becomes, what period are we trying to what flavor are we trying to infuse? Right? That becomes really difficult. And I my sense is those kinds of projects end up kind of diminishing the quality of the environment when you stylize them and when you make them cute, Disneylandish. And I think that's what we wanna avoid.

Correct.

Right? We absolutely wanna avoid that. So this is particularly daunting because it sounds like there isn't a a good record of what was there to faithfully replicate today. So I think the way in which we proceed in terms of the character, that's gonna be really difficult because I don't think it's gonna be about style. It's gonna be about things such as cornice heights and modulation and other other aspects. So I think if that's the kind of input you're looking for, I think we can help with that. But we don't want some sort of pastiche, you know, fake attempt to reclaim what might have been there at some point in history. Correct.

Commissioner Lejen, I appreciate those comments so much. We're taking them, you know, into account tonight, but also, you know, going forward. And and, I think, you know, your expertise on this, you know, particular topic is extremely valuable to us as a city, as potentially the, you know, the purchaser and the one that will have control over what ends up going there in the future. So thank you.

Great. And I have I have an addition to this this conversation. We have a we have a real issue with Chinatown because it's probably one of our best potential historic districts. It has a lot of emotional and, you know, historic support. We and we have a problem right now.

We don't have staff a staff person to bring forward our nomination, my understanding is. And so we haven't really established, for instance, where's the core area of Chinatown and what are the characteristics we're trying to preserve. So we don't even have them, you know, we have a couple of of proposed boundaries. But is it if this I mean, I'm all for affordable housing. Yay.

But is this within the core boundary area where we wanna have a continuous preservation of the historic buildings in a in that within that boundary. And what does it mean to have, you know, a four story new building placed inside the core area when we don't even have we're not in the position right now to decide what is the core area of core of Chinatown that needs to be protected. So that's one of our our real challenges is is establishing a boundary, and there are a few optional boundaries for what is what needs to be preserved. And for instance, I often recall, like, Old Sacramento because I was around when that was being developed as a historic a very successful historic district. And all of those buildings had multiple code violations.

They've been flooded 50 times, you know, over the last fifty years, but we were able to bring those back and make a continuous historic district in a in a small area. It doesn't have to be the whole area, but that's one of our challenges is and and perhaps if we with your studies, you could help us address appropriate boundaries for the historic district, at least an opinion from the historic preservation specialist that you I I don't know if that's that's probably the city well, like, the city's purview, but that's my concern is we don't even know where where the official boundaries for the district are are going to be at this point. So it it's hard to assess the effect on on a potential district when we don't know the boundaries.

Commissioner Johnston, again, thank you for those comments. I think they really speak to what I also heard, chair sponsor asking earlier

Mhmm.

Which is, trying to understand what the potential impact of this potential future action would be upon a potential future historic district. I think that is something that can be analyzed. And so, I wanna just also acknowledge that, our environmental consultant that we procured, with SWCA is, they joined us tonight online, and so they've been listening in and taking notes as well. So thank you.

Very good. Thank you. Anyone

else? Okay. Assistant Director Sky, thank you very much. The one final comment I do have is as you do your research, it looks like that there might have been a significant Japanese influence with regards to people utilizing that building. So this might be that kind of underlying Japantown that we talk about that's embedded in Chinatown. So when you do look at that, take a look at that too. Thank you.

Will do. Thank you, chair. Thank you, commissioners. Appreciate you.

Alright. We at this point, we'll, we'd have public comment? No. So this will be as an item, later on. Okay. So we're gonna move on to item seven b. That's updates on the plans for the historic preservation month. And I'll go ahead and lead that off. So many of you have a copy or should have a copy in front of you of what the finalized calendar looks like. Also, you may have noticed you have a coaster that was provided by director Clark over here with regards to the historic preservation month.

For those that will be available on this coming Thursday, that will be when the proclamation is provided. The proclamation will be read at 01:30 in the afternoon. What I wanted to note about the calendar is that compared to what we've had in in the last couple of years is kind of more slimmed and trimmed down to what we've had in the past, kind of focusing on on specific locations and specific places rather than us trying to create a broader aspect. The one thing that I I did want to point out, it's it's not on here, is I would encourage commission to, at some point, visit a friend of of historic preservation that's Pat Hunter's studio. She does have a kind of an art gallery in there of of historic buildings and items that are either here or no longer there, and I would encourage those to take a look at that and kinda see what they are.

They're beautiful watercolors. Some of them will actually be on display during Art Hop this Thursday, but I do encourage you to take that take some time and and take a look at that to get a a better sense of that. Are there any questions about what we have? Okay. I do wanna thank everyone that that helped out with this and my subcommittee members, Laval and Eddings, for the work on this. And I look forward to having our our different events.

Can I ask who do I commend on the graphics? This is really nice graphics.

I I just noticed a typo. It's just freaking me out a little bit. But, yes, we have a very talented graphics artist in our office, Kara Hammerschmidt, and she does amazing work. So thank you. We will pass that along.

Alright. With that, we'll move on to item seven c, and that's gonna be an update on the stained glass at 1115 U Street. And it looks like Ashley has a presentation for us about it.

Good evening, chair and commissioners. Ashley Atkinson, assistant director for development services, serving also in, the capacity of representing historic preservation, for the departments. Just, to provide an update on one of the items that you saw, a couple of months ago, we did successfully work with the applicant who, you asked them recognizing the challenge of replacing the windows that had been removed. You directed that they, merely remove the paint from the chapel, front facing window, which you can see here. It was painted white from the inside.

They have removed the paint, and this is a photo of the after. As you can see, it's restored to its amber color. And I believe I took this picture. It does look like they did a nice job. There didn't appear to be any damage to the the pains or anything like that.

So they were, you know, very cooperative in complying with the direction, took care of it right away. And, I think that concludes our involvement here. They do understand going for forward that this is a designated historic resource, and any work they do needs to be permitted and and is subject to review for impacts to the historic nature of the structure. They do have plans to do a little more work, to some roof repairs, that kind of thing. So, we will certainly, review for for, again, any historic impacts. Any, questions or comments on this one?

Any questions? Comments?

We thank them.

A small happy dance.

Right. It does look far and way

better. Yes.

And we did get some photos of the inside of the chapel as well, what it looks like today. So those are in in the file. We didn't share them with you. But, you know, it it has a little bit more of a clean modern look than it probably originally did, but, you know, it's at least we have the the nice amber glass. Yeah. I will pass that along. Alright. And we have closed their code enforcement, case as well. Alright.

Since that was an update, we'll just move on now to our next update, which is item seven d. That's our monthly update on the Garcia Brewer Adobe.

Sure. So, again, Ashley Atkinson, assistant director for development services, to present the monthly update. We don't have, a lot in the way of changed conditions to report. It is in the same state that we reported last month. We are working with our city attorney on ways to establish a record that could lead us to more intensive intervention.

I think we gave you this report last month, but, the city attorney's office has expressed that they're limited legally to kind of the minimum intervention that is needed to remove a public nuisance, which in this case, is, not necessarily like, we haven't, you know, reached that level of of nuisance, where the structure would be justified for the city to go in and actually do the work. So we will continue to work with them on moving towards that. They are considering the options, but we don't have a lot of of new news to report this month.

K. Questions, comments,

or questions?

Okay.

Alright. Then we'll move on to our, monthly updates starting with any staff updates that we have.

So we have our usual report for you on, activity in and out, in February and March. We did experience a little bit of a slowdown in February just because of the staffing disruptions, and we made up for that in March by processing things and kind of getting things moving. So any there was a lot more completed in March than taken in in March, generally speaking, because we, we were processing things that had been received in February. We did receive one new mitigation program application last month, and so that's good news. We also along with the flyer for historic preservation month, we did send a letter to all property owners advising them of the all owners of historic properties, I should say, designated historic properties, informing them of the opportunities with the mitigation program and the Mills Act.

So they did all get a letter describing what's available to them, an invitation to participate in historic preservation month activities, and the flyer. And we, mailed those out, I believe, today. Alright. We mailed them today. So, hopefully, I will be, you know, getting additional interest in Mittels Act and mitigation program participation.

Any questions on that? K. I also just wanted to mention briefly about the Baoentong Building, and also about, staffing. We did the demolition has been completed at the Baoentong Building as you probably saw. In the process of finishing the demolition, they did find some additional artifacts.

We presented showed you some pictures last month of what had been found. They found some more pieces of what, may have been the altar, some wooden carvings, all broken and in pieces, but they're actually quite kind of charming despite their, you know, being broken. They're not in terrible condition. We did have a visit from the staff of the historic preservation society to look at what is in storage, and, they expressed an interest in everything. And so we are working on just, the mechanism that we need to, transfer stewardship of those items over to the historical historical society.

So we'll, be getting that done as soon as we can.

Just to comment on that, the, altar pieces Mhmm. We believe that the rest of the altar is in our storage already. Oh. And so from the photos and from our staff visit, we believe we'll be able to move that into the permanent exhibit at the archive on Kern along with some dishes and other interesting, there were some amazing things that came out after the first round of photographs. Mhmm. So we are looking to combine them with the other, artifacts, and they would then be in proper storage and on display when available. So thank you, Ashley.

You're welcome.

I had a question, with regard to your, report. Mhmm. It, you have one zero six reviews received and one zero six reviews completed. I'm presuming that is section one zero six reviews.

That is section one zero six reviews, and those are largely related to facade improvements. Is that correct, Janice? So we they're not, it's because those are federally funded. Think we're not doing, you know, a volume of section one zero six reviews for big projects or anything like that. Janice, can you confirm those were all facade improvements?

And are these being contracted out? Who's who's conducting the reviews? Oh, okay. Thank you.

We do have a contractor conducting those. And then last update on staffing. That was the end of the slides, I think. We, did have the historic preservation specialist position open and advertised for, several weeks, this month. It was originally closed April 22, but has been extended through today.

We will be reviewing the applications received. It may remain open until we are able to find a qualified candidate. But the good news is that we actually, got, quite a number of applications. Of course, everyone has to meet the very specific minimum qualifications, But we look forward to reviewing those that that do and, hopefully, not having to keep it open, indefinitely. So we'll report back on that next month.

Thank you. Alright. Any updates on the proposed historic districts?

Yes. So, as you all were just discussing, you know, we are still working towards a contract, that would let us, update the Chinatown historic resource survey. Appreciate the comments on the need to kind of, discuss boundaries, and I'll I'll talk to, the director about how we can bring that conversation back to you sooner than later. We do, you know, have budget issues for this year and next year that we're working with, but hopeful that we are gonna still be able to move forward with that, and we'll let you know.

Okay.

And we I do not have any updates on the other proposed historic districts other than Chinatown.

Alright. Thank you. Commissioner Halajian, any updates on from the architectural review subcommittee?

I think commissioner Johnson did a great report.

She did. And maybe better Okay. Commissioner Johnson, any updates on that?

Don't have my there. There we go. Yes. This last month, the committee addressed, two two proposed building permit demos, I believe. And one is at 1844 Cherry Street.

It's the Rosenberg warehouse. And they want to repaint and add windows and do and also do a major interior remodel. And so we've made comments on that. And for the most part, I think we're supportive of the of most of the improvements, but we wanna look at the interior specifically for any kind of industrial historic industrial values, and so we're going to do a site visit. And also looking at getting an updated DPR form.

And then also we've looked at the well, there's a proposal to to to remodel the Left Bird Building and turn it into a nightclub, I believe. And so we that's a 1961 mid century modern building on Fulton Mall. And so we've made comments. They've made a nice design proposal and we're making comments on that now.

Alright. And that's it. Thank you.

Can I just add to the architectural review subcommittee? When you do encounter things, for example, the the Rosenberg Warehouse, feel free to ask the historical society or the Poplar Valve collection. There are oftentimes photos of it being used originally, and it may help in your site visit. Rosenberg, I believe we do have several photos, that I'm happy to look up, but it just might inform you as to what might have been there at a particular time.

Oh, that'd be a great help because we

Don't hesitate. We never know until we are asked to find it. But we have access to a number of photographs that might be helpful.

Yeah. And and to comment on that because I know that there's a building around the corner that we actually was part of historic preservation month last couple couple years ago, we did a presentation there that still has its its basement conveyor belt factory conveyors in it. So it may still have conveyors and things like that that has been boarded up or things like that. Okay? Alright.

With that, we'll move on to chairperson's report. So as we move into historic preservation, I just want us to be, you know, annually mindful of what we have here. And with the plans and and changes that are coming, how we can best balance the need for new as well as balance our respect for the old. So I am one that that feels that we still need to continue to grow. We are still a growing city, and that's something that we must continue to cherish.

That's something that's been here for us for these all these years. And when we do that, we just have to be mindful about what we're doing and be deliberate in our conversation. That's my report for that. What I do wanna say is yeah. Yeah. Go for it. Go for it. So

I'd I'd mentioned adaptive reuse. I really think Yeah. We need to really, as a city, begin to embrace what that really means. It makes so much sense just from the standpoint of sustainability, from the standpoint of maintaining our heritage. And I think there's a lot of misconceptions about that approach to building that it's necessarily more expensive, and I don't think that's necessarily the case. So, anyway, I just wanna put in a plug for more adaptive reuse in our historic districts.

Thank you. The the one thing I do wanna point out that's something that we haven't covered about historic preservation month is coming in October will be the hundred and fortieth anniversary of the Citi's incorporation. So we may wanna think about at least having something to kind of, you know, note that coming up in in a few months. You know, that is kind of a significant milestone given the the age that we are in. Alright. That's what I have. So we're gonna move on to unscheduled items. So any members of the commission?

I just want to share a quick story brought up by the Rosenberg manufacturing plant. During World War two or to the prior be before America sorry. I'm hoarse today. But before, America joined World War two, there were many young women that were working in the packing plant, and they had made it a game to put notes in some of the boxes of the raisins that were coming out of that packing plant. And one of them ended up in Germany or in Austria.

Sorry. In Austria to a young Jewish man who the note said something like, well, reach out if you're ever in Fresno and and it was a joke that one of the ladies had played on one of the other girls. As it turns out, this young man had been beaten by the Nazis And through that note, he was able to connect with people in Fresno who rescued him and his family part of his family to come to America during the time of the Nazis. And there's a lot of history at that plant. So I just thought I would share that that was a really poignant story taken from their relatives to us.

So it's always good even if we do approve improvements or go with the flow that perhaps there can be some kind of storytelling element in a building like that that would say this was the site where something's really significant happened. And I just wanted to put that in all our minds.

Thank you. Any other members? Okay. Any, comments from staff?

Just to ask that if you are going to attend on Thursday, that Janice needs your name by tomorrow so that we can provide that to the mayor's office. They will invite you up to the front to give the proclamation on Thursday afternoons. We like to know who is going to be here so the mayor can greet you by name, and it's very important to the administration. And I wanna thank you all for all of the hard work that you put in putting together a really great slate of activities, for this month, and I'm really looking forward to to participating in some of them. Thank you.

Alright. Members of the public.

Let's see if I didn't get that right. Thank you. And, also, thank you for the lovely, display of the events that are coming up. That's very helpful, and I'd love to see those published around the place, especially here at City Hall. And I didn't get the name of the chapel that had the windows restored.

It yeah. Lutheran Emmanuel Lutheran Church is what what it was originally

Okay. Emmanuel Lutheran Church. Thank you.

At 111 U 1115 U Street.

Okay. I got that part.

Thank you. And, also, thank you, commissioner sponsor, for inviting everyone to Pat Hunter's gallery too. If you plan to go there, it's a good idea to call her. She does step out at times. She does have a dog. And her number there at the gallery, I hope you'll all go there. It's one of the best records of beautiful memories of buildings that have been destroyed and buildings that are still here. And if you've never been there, it's really a a nice venue to renew your interest in historic preservation. Her number at the gallery too is 222-4443. So check with her that she's there.

She's mostly there, but there are times she steps out, so it'd be good if you knew that. The address of the gallery is 1490 West Shaw Avenue, Suite G. And, literally, it's on the Northwest Corner Of Fruit And Shaw, and it's a little bit tricky to park. If you drive north on Fruit, there's an alleyway that goes across the back of the building, and she's way at the end of it, the furthest west you can drive, and you'll find her there most days. And she has classes and students there, and it's really a nice, calm place to visit historic Fresno.

And thank you for all you do, all of you. And I know you'd miss me if I didn't get up.

Well, thank you. Alright. Anyone else? Okay. With that, we our next meeting is tentatively for May 19. That will be in Room 2165. And with that, we can entertain a motion to adjourn. Alright? Alright. We stand adjourned at 06:50PM.