Remarks by Nick Richardson
106 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 5
- Play at 20:42
“All right, Council Member Richardson, you recognized? Yeah, I'd just like to register a no vote on Item 2D as in Delta.”
City Council · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 36:26
“Clerk, anything to read into the record? No? All right, for our next proclamation, sponsored by Council Member Perea, we have California Native American Day.”
City Council · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 1:03:50
“Mayor, if you don't mind, can I make a comment real quick? Absolutely. So declaring independence as a nation is great, but that's like jumping off a cliff. The Constitution is the parachute that allows us to safely proceed into the future of our country. Just declaring that you're independent is fantastic, but that's gone quickly if you don't have a set of rules to dedicate yourselves to. Every single one of us up here on the dais, every single elected official at the federal level, every military officer, every person enlisted in our nation's defense takes the same oath to support and defend…”
City Council · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 1:10:20
“So this is not today a recognition of the global BAPS charities. Although the work they do is important, this is specifically recognition to the impact that BAPS here in Fresno has had on Fresno. The BAPS that's over there in District 6 on Maple and Neese, a few things are true. When you leave there, You will never leave bored, you will never leave lonely, and you will never leave hungry. Just things that are true. Now the very first public event that we had when I came into office was a trash cleanup. And that trash cleanup, we had a ton of people show up and volunteer and get out there…”
City Council · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 1:54:40
“Sure. Thank you to the... to Teens That Care, who put on a lovely 9-11 remembrance ceremony at Todd Beamer Park. Even bigger event than it was last year. Great opportunity for remembrance. We had a Sister Cities meeting this week. And if you're interested in Sister Cities, ask, I don't know, your council member. But my goal is to make the Sister Cities program something that economically benefits the city, right? I want the city to have something that we can take away, whether it's new jobs or new procedures, new ways that we can fast-track things to get Fresno moving based on lessons that…”
City Council · Sep 17, 2026
- Play at 51:12
“Yes. Good morning. It is a beautiful day in District 6 this morning. A couple of things. We have this coming Monday, which will be Monday the 7th. It is Labor Day for a lot of folks, but there's going to be a fantastic and very historic event. and historical event going on at the Morocco Dhamma Center down on Kern, downtown, as part of Chinatown. Big Buddhist celebrations, fantastic. They're going to have all kinds of food and activities and a lot of meditation out there, if that's your thing. You're in luck. Again, if you want to see 1,500-year-old statues and artifacts and all kinds of…”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:44:37
“Yeah. Could we, could the city manager skip ahead of me? I can go after her. That's fine. If you want to. Yeah. There's no one else much that.”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:45:20
“Councilman Richardson. Okay. With most of the concerns I've heard about this pretty much fall into three categories. One, there are other parts of the city who are upset that development is, or that planning, a plan is to take place in a different part of the city. And I got that. The second is from the folks who are specifically those who I think are in the county who are concerned about quality of life, whether it's their livelihood, the way they get their water, the way they grow their crops, the way they, if your husband livestock, whatever else. And that's kind of a different category.…”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:47:34
“Okay, is it, now I understand this is difficult when you're looking at a zoning map, because generally when you're looking at city zoning maps, there's like a blue, it's a little bit lighter than those chairs, that refers to institutional land. You can see things like the wastewater treatment facility that are like this, schools, I think City Hall is. Some of those little blue dots out there are those allocated to be namely fire substations. I don't think we have a plan to reroute the five policing district plan at this point, but Is it the interpretation of the city, and Jennifer, you can…”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:49:08
“That fire station that's planned along Armstrong, would its jurisdiction cover any of the proposed SEDA area at any point?”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:49:33
“Okay. Then obviously it's too soon to talk about which one will be which, but is it fair to say, and is it objectively correct, that one of those blue institutional squares over there would reasonably be a first response, an emergency services location?”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:49:54
“Well, one of them would be. The W and the C carry a lot of weight here.”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:50:26
“Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I'd like to speak a little bit about the uptake and absorption rates, which honestly, before coming into this job and before this year, didn't know what those were when it came to residential development or industrial or commercial for that matter. I wanna talk about these for a second because one, all of these things are really based on and contingent upon whether the person who owns the land, wherever the piece of land is, wants to sell it in the first place. At that point, it would have to be purchased by whoever's going to build. Is that fair?”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:51:09
“Or develop and then build. Okay. Now, can you speak a little bit to where we got the numbers or these projections? And I understand the Visalia model, and we talked about the 500,000 on the conservative side, 2 million on the large side. and we've seen proof of that in Visalia, so another kind of valley comparable market, if you will. Can you talk to where we got this number for roughly the 1 million? Is that just a we think, or is that based on specifically transportation corridors, what Fresno brings, things of that nature?”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:51:45
“Specifically with the FR&D, the South of Jensen portion.”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:52:10
“Okay. And then outside of Icelia, are there any comparable markets, whether it's Madeira or otherwise that we looked at to kind of compare what our absorption or uptake would look like? Or was that kind of the golden standard there?”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:53:27
“I appreciate that. I was going to ask to see if someone could send what those inquiries were that went to the EDC. I'd be curious to look at those. If they're preparing a report anyway, then I can wait for that. I would appreciate seeing that. I think other people would as well. And this is just a... We're going to spend some time talking about density. Overall, not that it matters because we're not really voting today. I'm not a one or a zero on this. A lot of times we think about this in very binary terms, but I'm going to analyze. I'm going to ask a lot of questions. I think you know that…”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:55:02
“Okay. And then one of the concerns brought to me by a constituent of someone's here, I'm sure, yesterday, was the market demand study for the residential was done, but we hadn't seen one or someone hadn't seen one on the industrial area. But it's my understanding from the presentation earlier that was done last year. And I'm guessing that's where we base some of the absorption rates on.”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:56:10
“Okay. Last two questions, I think, for you, Director, and Director Amico, you're here as well. I appreciate that. Are you willing to field some questions about water? Okay, I appreciate it. Last two questions I have for you, because we're about to do Nerding Out with Nick here when it comes to density and all that. Can you speak a little bit to the difference between net and gross when it comes to housing units and acreage?”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:57:13
“Got it. So, okay, so what we're looking at with net density, you're looking closer to the actual acreage of houses, not acreage of just a residential area. Is that broken down a little more simply?”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:57:32
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:58:46
“Like what's their water consumption roughly right now, knowing that it's overwhelmingly agricultural? What is that water consumption set to look like with... Again, a window is fine, but with this flexible research and development.”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:59:08
“Okay, water's important. I'm concerned with it. Very much.”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 5:59:26
“Bernard, do you still have the slideshow available? Would you mind going to, in that slideshow, just for reference, slide, in the supplemental packet, it's slide five of 126. It's slide four in the presentation, if that helps, whichever you prefer. It has a map on it. That one. Okay. So when we're talking residential here, I think we've probably beat this dead horse, but we're talking about the portion that's east of Temperance, just north of Jensen there bounded by the canal. With that area, the number was thrown out. I know this number has gone up from previous projections from somewhere in…”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 6:02:52
“Okay. And again, that's assuming this 10,000 number. If that number were reduced to say 5,000 houses, is there any way, any cost of those homes that would still result in a surplus? Or if we slash that number in half, are we now automatically in the hole?”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026